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THE 

Vision of Sir Launfal 



AND 



Other Poems by Lowell 



EDITED 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

BY 

CHARLES M. STEBB1NS, A.M. 

Boys' High School, Brooklyn 



Brooklyn 

THE ENGLISH LEAFLET COMPANY 
1907 









o,\0- 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Cooy Received 

NOV 13 1907 

Copyri*nt Entry 

I GLASS 4 KXcfoo. 



COPY 8 



Copyright, 1Q07, by 
CHARLES M. STEBBINS 



V 

>. w 

o 

CONTENTS. 

3 

? Introduction. page 

Biographical Sketch of Lowell i 

Literary Estimates of Lowell 19 

Legend of the Holy Grail 21 

Poems of Culture. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal 26 

Rhcecus 40 

A Chippewa Legend 46 

Ambrose 50 

A Parable 53 

Poems of Nature 

An Indian-Summer Reverie 55 

Beaver Brook 68 

To the Dandelion 7° 

The Bobolink 73 

Miscellaneous Poems. 

The Present Crisis 77 

The Fatherland 84 

A Song 85 

With a Pressed Flower 87 

My Love 88 

The Changeling ox) 

Notes 93 

iii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LOWELL. 

On the outskirts of the quiet, rustic village of Cam- 
bridge of nearly a century ago, in the midst of pleasant 
fields stood Elmwood, the birthplace of James Russell 
Lowell. The house itself, even in those days, had inter- 
esting associations. It had been built and first inhab- 
ited by Peter Oliver, English stamp agent at Boston, 
just previous to the breaking out of the Revolution. 
A request that he resign his office was made upon him 
by the " Boston Committee," which consisted of about 
four thousand members. The request of the citizens 
of Boston carried so much weight that it was not long 
before the house on "Tory Row" was vacated. Its 
owner deemed it consistent with his best interests to 
return to England. The place was afterward inhabited 
by Elbridge Gerry, notorious for the methods of polit- 
ical districting which he devised, and which have since 
been known by the term gerrymandering. 

The Elmwood of 1819 was not the Elmwood of to- 
day. The general characteristics, however, were much 
the same. Many of the trees grew up with the poet 
and became closely associated with his life. During 
Lowell's life the house stood in the centre of an in- 
closure of several acres, surrounded by elms — some of 
them native, but for the most part English, planted by 

I 



2 LOWELL'S POEMS 

the poet's father — oaks, firs, and horse-chestnuts, in 
addition to fruit trees of various kinds. The place was 
a haunt for all kinds of birds. The robins plundered 
the cherry trees ; the orioles hung their nests from the 
elm boughs ; and the wrens, yellow-birds, and thrushes 
built and sang among the syringa and lilac blossoms. 
In spite of their constant depredations in the fruit 
trees, they were welcomed by Lowell, and were "lords 
of the earldom as much as he." In "My Garden Ac- 
quaintance," Lowell wrote of them : "The return of 
the robin is commonly announced by the newspapers, 
like that of eminent or notorious people to a watering- 
place, as the first authentic notification of spring. But 
in spite of his name of migratory thrush, he stays with 
us all winter. ... He feels and freely exercises his 
right of eminent domain. His is the earliest mess of 
green peas ; his all the mulberries I had fancied mine. 
But if he gets the lion's share of the raspberries, he is 
a great planter, and sows those wild ones in the woods 
that solace the pedestrian and give a momentary calm 
to the jaded victims of the White Hills. He keeps a 
strict eve over one's fruit, and knows to a shade of 
purple when your grapes have cooked long enough in 
the sun. 

"During the severe drought a few years ago, the 
robins wholly vanished from my garden. I neither saw 
nor heard one for three weeks. Meanwhile a small 
foreign grape, rather shy of bearing, seemed to find 
the dusty air congenial, and, dreaming perhaps of its 
sweet Argos across the sea, decked itself with a score 
or so of fair bunches. I watched them from day to 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LOWELL 3 

day till they should have secreted sugar enough trom 
the sunbeams, and at last made up my mind that I 
would celebrate my vintage the next morning. 

"But the robins, too, had somehow kept note of 
them. They must have sent out spies, as did the Jews 
into the promised land, before I was stirring. When 
I went with my basket at least a dozen of these winged 
vintagers bustled out from among the leaves, and, 
alighting en the nearest trees, interchanged some shrill 
remarks about me of a derogatory nature. They had 
fairly sacked the vines. Not Wellington's veterans 
made cleaner work of a Spanish town ; not Federals or 
Confederates were ever more impartial in the confis- 
cation of neutral chickens. ... As for the birds, I do 
not believe there is one of them but does more good 
than harm ; and of how many featherless bipeds can 
this be said?" 

Lowell, like Longfellow and Holmes and Emerson, 
was the son of a clergyman. His father, Dr. Charles 
Lowell, was a man noted for his good sense, ideals of 
honor, strictness to duty, and for his high but practical 
views of life. For several generations the Lowells had 
been prominent and influential citizens of Massa- 
chusetts. They were descended from Percival Lowell, 
or Lowle, who had settled at Newbury in the year 1639. 
The city of Lowell took its name from Francis Cabot 
Lowell, who had the foresight to perceive that the 
future prosperity of New England lay in manufactur- 
ing. A section of the Bill of Rights of Massachusetts, 
by which slavery was abolished from the common- 
wealth, was draughted by John Lowell, a judge of con- 



4 LOWELL'S POEMS 

siderable reputation in his generation. Lowell Insti- 
tute was established by a bequest of $250,000 by John 
Lowell, Jr. Another John Lowell was for many years 
a district judge of the United States. 

The characteristic qualities of his maternal ances- 
tors were of an entirely different nature. Harriet 
Spence, his mother, was of a Scottish family, and tradi- 
tion has it that she was descended from Patrick Spens 
of old ballad fame. She was endowed with a wonder- 
ful memory, the gift of easily acquiring languages, and 
an ardent appreciation of poetry, especially the 
romantic songs and ballads which became the early 
intellectual nourishment of her children. James, the 
youngest of five, was born on the anniversary of Wash- 
ington's birth, in the year 1819, the year in which were 
born George Eliot, John Ruskin, Arthur Hugh Clough, 
Charles Kingsley, and Queen Victoria. 

This diversity of attainments and tastes of the 
parents peculiarly fitted them to nurture their children 
into symmetrical, well-balanced men and women. 
There were the practical conceptions of life, the intel- 
lectual temper and attainments of the father ; there 
were the love for the ideal, the appreciation of the 
beautiful and romantic in the training of the mother ; 
and there were the lofty and noble sentiments of both. 
The manner of living was such as the people of a cen- 
tury ago inherited from the firm and homely customs 
of the Puritans. 

The education of James began in his father's library, 
which contained about a thousand well-selected vol- 
umes. Here, no doubt, he yielded to the influences 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LOWELL 5 

which his mother's training had stimulated in him, and 
filled his young head brimful of fanciful visions. In 
later life he wrote in a letter to a friend : "Here I am 
in my garret. I slept here when I was a little curly- 
headed boy, and used to see visions between me and 
the ceiling, and dream the so often recurring dream 
of having the earth put into my hand like an orange. 
In it I used to be shut up without a lamp — my mother 
saying that none of her children should be afraid of 
the dark — to hide my head under the pillow, and then 
not to be able to shut out the shapeless monsters that 
thronged around me." 

The first school that he attended was one nearly 
opposite Elmwood, kept by William Wells, an English- 
man of the old school, with a thorough classical educa- 
tion, with whom, it is said, the use of the cane had 
not become a lost art. Lowell afterward attended a 
thorough classical school in Boston. 

He entered Harvard in 1835, when he was in his 
sixteenth year, and graduated three years later in the 
same class with several men who became famous in 
various spheres of life. Among them were William 
W. Story (the noted sculptor and poet), Prof. Nathan 
Hale, Prof. H. L. Eustis, and Charles Devens, a gen- 
eral in the Civil War, afterwards Judge of the Supreme 
Court of Massachusetts, and Attorney-General of the 
United States in the administration of President Hayes. 

Lowell's rank as a student was far below what his 
abilities gave promise of. He was known to remark 
often afterward that he read everything except the 
prescribed courses. He had an especial aversion to 



6 LOWELL'S POEMS 

mathematics. What he loved most were books of 
travel, romances, poems, and plays, particularly those 
of the old writers ; and these he read to' the neglect of 
his regular studies. Such food as this, however, was 
far better suited to the producing of a poet than the 
books prescribed by the faculty. 

Despite the fact that he did not shine as a student, 
Lowell knew how to make friends, friends whom he 
kept. In the dedication of the Class Poem, which he 
wrote at the time of his graduation, this fact was mani- 
fest in his reference to the members of the c 1 ass, "some 
of whom he loves, none of whom he hates." 

Upon leaving college, Lowell entered the Law 
School, where he took the degree of LL.B. in 1840. 
He soon afterward opened an office in Boston, but 
although he wrote a story for the Boston Miscellany 
entitled "My First Client," it does not appear that he 
ever had one, or, indeed, that he ever seriously enter- 
tained the idea of following the profession. 

The poet's first published book, a small volume of 
verse entitled "A Year's Life," appeared just at the 
close of his twenty-second year. The motto prefixed 
to tins volume was the line, "Ich habe gelebt and 
geHebet/' from the lyric sung by Theckla, in Schiller's 
"Wallenstein." The lady of the poet's fancy in these 
verses was Miss Maria White, "a person of delicate 
and spiritual beauty, refined in taste, sympathetic in 
nature, and the author of several exquisite poems." 

Most of the poems of this first volume were rejected 
by the maturer judgment of the author in preparing 
subsequent editions of his works, as they were then 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LOWELL 7 

rejected by his contemporaries ; yet they contained 
evidences of a sparkling poetic genius. Among the 
best pieces of the collection are "The Beggar/' "Irene," 
and "With a Pressed Flower." 

The young author's next literary venture was the 
Pioneer, a magazine which he undertook conjointly 
with Robert Carter, the two subscribing themselves as 
"Editors and Publishers." The new periodical was 
beautifully printed and illustrated according to the 
custom of the times ; the articles were of superior ex- 
cellence, but, like many another dream of young 
authors, it was doomed to die. Only three numbers 
appeared, and the editors were forced to suspend busi- 
ness on account of lack of patronage. It was of too 
high an order to succeed in those days. Some of the 
contributors to those three numbers, besides the ed- 
itors, were Mrs. Browning (then Miss Barrett), Edgar 
Allan Poe, Whittier, William W. Story (artist and 
poet), Jones Very (Lowell's classmate and lifelong 
friend), and T. W. Parsons. 

In 1844, three years after the publication of "A 
Year's Life," he issued a second volume of poems. 
Many of the pieces in this little book are favorites 
to-day, although they failed to please the staid taste of 
the public of that period. The style of the author and 
much of the subject matter were entirely new, qualities 
quite certain to fail of the approval of the stern New 
Englander of sixty-five years ago, with his fixed 
notions and inherent dislike for innovations. Of this 
volume Dr. Underwood says, "There was something of 
Wordsworth's simplicity, something of Tennyson's 



8 LOWELL'S POEMS 

sweetness and musical flow, and something more of 
the manly earnestness of the Elizabethan poets; but 
the resemblances were external; the individuality of 
the poet is clear. The obvious characteristic of the 
poems is their high religious spirit. It is not a wild 
and passive morality that we perceive, but the aggres- 
sive force of primitive Christianity. The vivid concep- 
tion of the law of love and of the duties of brotherhood 
suggests the time when such thoughts were new and 
startling, before their vital power had been lost in 
chanted creeds and iterated forms." 

In the same year Lowell and Maria White were 
married, and went to live with his parents at Elmwood. 
And it was in the following year that his first prose 
work appeared, "Conversations with Some of the Old 
Poets." 

The thoughts and feelings of the young man, now in 
his twenty-seventh year, were becoming settled and 
crystallized. The mighty problems of the times — and 
no time has seen questions of greater importance to 
the human race, or greater changes working — shared, 
nay, almost consumed his time and attention. His 
sympathies were with Sumner, Garrison, and Phillips ; 
and more than any other poet, unless it be Whittier, 
he gave himself, heart and soul, to the cause of the 
slave. In his "Stanzas on Freedom" he wrote: 

"Men! whose boast it is that ye 
Come of fathers brave and free, 
If there breathe on earth a slave, 
Are ye truly free and brave ? 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LOWELL 9 

If ye do not feel the chain 
When it works a brother's pain, 
Are ye not base slaves indeed, 
Slaves unworthy to be freed ? 

"Is true freedom but to break 
Fetters for our own dear sake, 
And, with leathern hearts, forget 
That we owe mankind a debt ? 
No ! true freedom is to share 
All the chains our brothers wear, 
And, with heart and hand, to be 
Earnest to make others free I" 

Already, too, he had written the prophetic lines, 

"He who would be the tongue of this wide land 
Must string his harp with chords of sturdy iron," 

little suspecting, perhaps, that he would be the one 
called upon so to string his harp before another year 
had passed bv. But when the Mexican war broke out, 
undertaken, as many thought, for the extension of slave 
territory, Lowell's heart flamed with indignation. What 
could he do? He wrote a letter to the Boston 
Courier, enclosing the first of what are now known 
as the "Biglow Papers." The letter, containing the 
poem of Hosea Biglow, purported to come from his 
father, Ezekiel. The theme was the recruiting of 
volunteers in Boston. The poem, in the Yankee dialect, 
ran: 



10 LOWELL'S POEMS 

'Thrash away, you'll hev to rattle 
On them kittle-drums o' yourn — 
Tain't a knowin' kind o' cattle 

That is ketched with mouldy corn." 

Boston, and, indeed, the whole reading public, was 
amazed. The literary circle pronounced the poem 
vulgar; some good gentlemen regarded it as blas- 
phemous, some were simply amused, while others, of 
the earnest abolition stamp, rejoiced at the debut of a 
new champion of the cause, though some of them, like 
Charles Sumner, wished he could have used better 
English. Shortly afterward came "What Mr. Robin- 
son Thinks," which tickled the people still more than 
the previous ones had done. Then followed "A Debate 
in the Sennit, Sot to a Nusry Rhyme." Poem fol- 
lowed poem till the war was over and the struggle had 
temporarily closed. 

Of the "Biglow Papers" the Cornhill Magazine 
said : "A man can hardly hope to repeat such a success 
as that of the 'Biglow Papers.' They are vigorous 
jests of song evolved by an excitement powerful 
enough to fuse together many heterogeneous elements. 
Strong sense, grotesque humor, hatred of humbug, 
patriotic fervor, and scorn of tyranny predominate 
alternately. It is only when an electric flash of emotion 
is passing through a nation that such singular products 
of spiritual chemistry are produced." 

Scarcely were the "Biglow Papers" finished and 
gathered together in book form when Lowell again 
turned his pen to satire, and produced 'The Fable for 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LOWELL n 

Critics," a poem in which he inscribed, in the midst of 
his satire and humor — humor as bright and sparkling 
as his Beaver Brook — an estimate of contemporary 
writers of both prose and poetry. Of himself he 
speaks with the same ease and discernment that he dis- 
plays in regard to the others, and his self-criticism is 
done unsparingly : 

"There is Lowell, who is striving Parnassus to climb 
With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme. 
He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, 
But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders ; 
The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching 
Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preach- 
ing." 

It was a distinction, however, which he never did 
learn, and doubtless never meant to learn. 

He had produced in the meantime "The Vision of 
Sir Launfal," which has come to be regarded by many 
not only as Lowell's best sustained flight of lyrical 
poetry, but the best sustained piece of lyrical verse yet 
produced in America. 

During these years of Lowell's married life his 
domestic associations had been happy in the extreme. 
Mrs. Lowell was a beautiful and gifted woman, who 
was a source of inspiration to the poet. But her failing 
health had become a source of much concern to him. 
Children had been born to them, but all except one of 
them had died in infancy, and the parental feelings 
mingled with a deep reverence were pathetically ex- 



12 LOWELL'S POEMS 

pressed in the three poems, "She Came and Went," 
"The Changeling," and "The First Snowfall." 

In 185 1 the poet and his wife sailed for Europe, 
where they spent most of their time in Italy, though 
they visited England, France, and Switzerland. When 
they returned to America in the fall of the following 
year, Mrs. Lowell's health was still failing, and she 
died in the autumn of 1853. It was in earlier years 
that Lowell had written the sweet poem containing the 
prayer : 

"God, do not let my loved one die, 
Rut rather wait until the time 

That I am grown in purity 

Enough to enter Thy pure clime; 

Then take me, I will gladly go, 
So that my love remain below." 

Afterward, in speaking of home, he expressed the wish 
that he might close the shutters, 

"For it died that autumn morning 
When she, its soul, was borne 
To lie all dark on the hillside 

That looks over woodland and corn." 

During these years of anxiety and bereavement, 
Lowell had been busily engaged in literary work, and 
he still continued to be so. Much of his best work had 
appeared in Putnam's Monthly. And now he was 
called upon to deliver a course of lectures on the Eng- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LOWELL 13 

lish poets at Lowell Institute. These discourses, twelve 
in number, w r ere highly successful both with the literary 
people and with the younger generation in Boston. 
The success of the undertaking was due entirely to the 
genuine worth of the lecturer's work — the clear-cut 
thought, the deep poetic insight, and the strength and 
vividness of his language. 

This demonstration of his ability came opportunely. 
Longfellow, who was professor of belles-lettres at 
Harvard, desired to retire that he might devote his 
undivided attention to literature. Lowell was chosen 
as his successor, and was given two years' leave of 
absence to pursue his studies in Europe. After an 
absence of two and a half years he returned and took 
up his labors as a professor. Popularity came to him 
readily. His thoroughness in scholarship, his quick 
and keen insight, and his genuine sincerity w r on for him 
immediate admirers among professors and students. 

Two events of importance in the life of Lowell oc- 
curred during his first year at Harvard. He was 
married to Miss Frances Dunlop, and became editor- 
in-chief of the Atlantic Monthly, which had just been 
founded by prominent New England authors. One of 
the avowed purposes of the periodical was to support 
the cause of abolition. To the numbers of this maga- 
zine Lowell contributed numerous articles both in prose 
and verse, which are among the best of his works. He 
held this place of honor and influence till 1862. 

A new opportunity was coming to "string his harp 
with chords of sturdy iron," and as the struggle of the 
Civil War came on, again he took up the "Biglow 



14 



LOWELL'S POEMS 



Papers," and made his fame as a satirist secure, if, 
indeed, it still needed anything to make it so. These 
"Papers," discussing all the leading phases of the ques- 
tion before the people, the poet continued from the out- 
break of the war to the days of reconstruction. In 
summing up the merits of the "Biglow Papers," Dr. 
Underwood says : "In this new field he is wholly with- 
out a rival — the sole laureate of the native, unlettered 
speech, and the exemplar of the mother-wit of New 
England. The few characters in his dramas are com- 
plementary, or, perhaps, as he himself suggests, 
'humorously identical under a seeming incongruity.' " 

In 1864 appeared a volume of prose, entitled "Fire- 
side Travels," containing "Cambridge Thirty Years 
Ago," sketches of life in the woods of Maine, and 
notes of his travels in Italy. The pieces, most of them, 
had been written long before, when Lowell was only 
thirty-four years old ; but they are among the most 
successful of his prose productions. The book is over- 
flowing with joyfulness, thoughtfulness, and the fresh 
feelings of a young and happy poet. It instructs while 
it charms, and gives food for contemplation while it 
fills with pleasure. It is a book characterized by beauty 
and versatility. 

Five years later the collection of poems called 
"Under the Willows" appeared. The volume con- 
tained a large portion of the work done by the poet 
during the years that followed his appointment to the 
editorship of the Atlantic Monthly. In the following 
year, 1870, he published "The Cathedral." a poem sug- 
gested by the great cathedral at Chartres ; "My Study 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LOWELL 15 

Windows," and "Among My Books." In "My Study 
Windows" were some of the best known essays, notably 
those on Lincoln, Emerson, Carlyle, and Chaucer. 
"Among My Books" contained the essays on Dryden, 
Shakespeare, Lessing, and Rousseau. And a second 
volume published the year following contained the ex- 
cellent essay on Dante and those on Milton, Words- 
worth, and Keats. These critical estimates of the poets 
are among the best that any literature has produced. 
In speaking of them, the Nation, a periodical which 
may be accredited with seldom overestimating the 
merit of authors, said that "Among My Books" con- 
tained the "most deliberate words of perhaps the best 
of living English critics — his final judgments on manv 
of the great names of literature; judgments which are 
the result of long and wide study and reading, of mar- 
velous acuteness of sight and delicacy of sympathy, 
containing a poet's opinion of other poets, a wit's 
opinion of other wits ; in short, the careful opinions of 
a man of cultivated genius concerning other men of 
genius who are near and dear to us all, but to all of 
us partly unintelligible without an interpreter; this 
book is one of the best gifts that for many years has 
come to the world of English literature ; and to say this 
is to say one of the best gifts that has for many years 
come to the world of literature." 

The next poetical publication of importance that 
came from the pen of Lowell was the "Three Memorial 
Poems." The greatest of the three, the "Commemora- 
tion Ode," which contains the finely drawn portrait of 
Lincoln, was dedicated "To the ever sweet and shining 



16 LOWELL'S POEMS 

memory of the ninety-three sons of Harvard College 
who have died for their country in the war of nation- 
ality !" Among them were numbered Col. Charles Rus- 
sell Lowell, Lieut. James Jackson Lowell, and Capt. 
William Lowell Putnam, together with five other near 
relatives of the poet. And they were the feelings of 
his heart that he recorded when he said : 

"I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, 

But the sad strings complain, 

And will not please the ear : 
I sweep them for a paean, but they wane 

Again and yet again 
Into a dirge, and die away, in pain." 

In the early seventies Lowell, with his wife, visited 
Europe, and while there received the appointment as 
Minister to Spain by President Hayes. The ministry 
to Austria had previously been offered to him, but he 
had declined. The romantic associations of Spain, 
however, were more inviting to the tastes of a poet, 
and Lowell gladly accepted this time. His duties here 
were fulfilled with such diplomacy and rare good sense 
that he was transferred, on the retirement of Mr. 
Welsh, to London, in 1880. He received a most enthu- 
siastic welcome to the metropolis of the English people, 
and his manly worth and rare scholarship won for him 
friends and applause everywhere. To him were ac- 
corded honors which were given to no other American. 
He was called upon to give the addresses at the unveil- 
ing of the bust of Fielding, in Taunton, Somersetshire ; 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LOWELL 17 

at the unveiling of the bust of Coleridge, in West- 
minster Abbey, which address the London Press pro- 
nounced to be the "finest eulogium on Coleridge yet 
written" ; at the unveiling of a bust of Gray, at Pem- 
broke College ; and on several other notable occasions. 
Always he was accorded sympathetic welcome and 
hearty approval by all who heard him. 

He left England to return home in 1885 amidst the 
universal regret of the English people. The Spec- 
tator voiced the general feeling. "Mr. Lowell is going 
back to America," it said; "and though to him this 
means going home, to us it seems as though an honored 
countryman were leaving us. American ministers not 
a few have lived among us for a time, as though they 
were part and parcel of ourselves. But Mr. Lowell has 
done this in a sense and in a degree that has been 
reached by none of his predecessors. He is at once 
the most and the least English, and the most and the 
least American of all who write our common tongue, 
and it is this that fits him so pre-eminently to be the 
link that he has been between the two countries." 

Besides the social and public honors that were show- 
ered upon him, and the degrees that the great universi- 
ties conferred upon him out of recognition of his 
scholarship, he was offered a professorship at the Uni- 
versity of Oxford. But Lowell was eager to see 
America once more. 

His return was greeted by the ablest authors of this 
country with articles in prose and verse. The number 
of the Literary World published June 27th was de- 
voted to his welcoming. From this time forth he was 



18 LOWELL'S POEMS 

called upon in America, as he had been in England, to 
deliver addresses on notable occasions. Perhaps the 
most important of these was the address he delivered 
on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
founding of Harvard College. 

Lowell's health had been steadily declining since his 
return from England. His labors were greatly cur- 
tailed, and they ceased altogether some time before his 
death. During these last years he spent much of his 
time with his daughter. The end came at Elmwood, 
on August 12, 1891. He was buried in Mount Auburn 
Cemetery two days later. Among the pall-bearers were 
President Eliot, of Harvard; Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
George William Curtis, Charles Eliot Norton, and 
William Dean I lowells. 

Lowell was a man of medium height, inclining to be 
slender, but strong and active, full of energy. In his 
movements he was deliberate and sustained. The color 
of his hair was chestnut, before it became gray, his 
beard being of a slightly lighter tint. The most expres- 
sive part of his features probably was his eyes, which 
were gray. They partook of his mood always, becom- 
ing grave or bright, penetrating or sparkling with 
mirth, according to the temper of his mind. 

In point of wit the man was unsurpassed, either in 
writing or speaking. His supply was inexhaustible. 
Tt was in his power to give utterance to sustained 
flights of poetic imagery or to pour out a stream of 
mirth overflowing with frolicsome humor. 

In habits, like many another pcet, Lowell was far 
from regular. Everything — exercise, reading, writing. 



LITERARY ESTIMATES OF LOWELL 



19 



and even eating — came from impulse more than system. 
But he always had an impulse, and one for something 
good ; hence the measure of his attainment. 



LITERARY ESTIMATES OF LOWELL. 

"With such a genius for comedy, — greater, I believe, 
than any English poet ever had, — with such wit. droll- 
ery, Yankee sense and spirit, I wonder he does not see 
his 'best hold,' and stick to it." 

Thackeray. 

"If we look at certain grave, sweet pages of Thack- 
eray, Newman, Martineau, Matthew Arnold, and the 
Ruskin of thirty years ago, we feel that we have in 
them specimens of ideal English. Something of the 
calm dignity, the seemingly artless perfection, and the 
limpid movement, characteristic of those writers, may 
sometimes be seen in passages of . Lowell ; but his 
felicity in figures, and the irrepressible rush of his 
double stream of thought, often lead him into a style 
of writing that is both poetry and prose, and is not 
purely either. . . . 

"If the soul of poetry is energy, its garment beauty, 
its effect emotion ; if, according to Landor, 'philosophy 
should run through poetry as veins do through the 
body' ; if that is a poem which is inspired with original 
thought, graced by unborrowed pictures and figures, 
and which suggests continually more than meets the 
eve, — then it will be impossible to deny Lowell a high 
rank among poets. . . . 



20 LOWELL'S POEMS 

"Poems with such a range, such vivid conceptions, 
such high purpose, such keen insight, such tender sym- 
pathy, and such flashing lights of imagery, have never 
been very common." 

Francis H. Underwood, LL.D. 

"The style of Mr. Lowell is emphatically his own, 
and yet no man reports so habitually — half sympathet- 
ically, half whimsically — the ring of other writers. 
Homer Wilbur is especially redolent or resonant of the 
old Elizabethan masters. 

"We hear the grave Verulam Lord Bacon, or the 
judicious Hooker. . . . Sometimes we get an odd 
flavor of Swift, right humor being substituted for ma- 
lignant satire ; at others, the flowing and tender style of 
Jeremy Taylor comes back to us as we read. . . . 

"Yet is he as voluminous and many-sided in poetry 
as in prose; 'he sings to one clear harp in divers 
tones.' " • H. R. Haweis. 

"As often as the first eight lines of this poem (The 
Vision of Sir Launfal) come to mind, I feel a 
poetic breath not borne to me again from our home 
hills and fields, and rarely wafted from the old lands 
beyond the sea ; and passing on to the thirty-third line 
beginning, 

'And what is so rare as a day in June ?' 

I say each time, '.Here and in certain passages of the 
later odes are the purest, the sweetest, and at the same 
time the freshest strains from any singer of our soil.' v 

John Vance Cheney. 



THE LEGEND OF THE HOLY GRAIL." 

The legends of the Holy Grail are so numerous and 
so varied that it is impossible to give an account that 
will not in many points be in conflict with other ver- 
sions. But any one of the renderings given by the 
various poets or chroniclers will convey an idea of the 
importance of the story in mediaeval life and literature. 

It is said by some authorities that the legend of the 
Holy Grail was introduced into Europe by the Moors 
in Spain, and that the Spaniards transmitted it to the 
French, where it was moulded into two lengthy poems 
by Chrestien de Troves and Robert de Borron. It soon 
found its way into England through the hand of Arch- 
deacon Walter Map, of Oxford, who interwove it with 
the legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round 
Table. It early became very popular in Germany, 
where it attracted the genius of Wolfram von Eschen- 
bach and Gottfried von Strassburg. Upon the "Parzi- 
val" of von Eschenbach, Wagner based his famous 
opera. 

The story runs that, when Lucifer was cast out of 
heaven, one precious stone of great size and beauty 
fell from his crown to earth. From this jewel was 
carved a cup of marvelous beauty, which was held in 
high reverence for many centuries, when it descended 
to Joseph of Arimathea. 

21 



22 LOWELL'S POEMS 

At the Crucifixion, Joseph held the cup beneath the 
bleeding side of the Saviour and caught a few drops of 
the Redeemer's blood. Thereafter it was believed to 
be endowed with the power of healing anyone soever 
who looked upon it. 

Annually a snow-white dove brought a fresh host 
down from heaven, placing it upon the cup, which was 
held by a band of angels or immaculate virgins. The 
vessel, however, remained in the possession of Joseph 
of Arimathea, who, on account of persecution by the 
Jews, left Palestine, carrying the sacred vessel with 
him. Lie landed at Marseilles, and, after many ad- 
ventures, arrived at Glastonbury, where the Sangreal 
remained for a long time in the possession of his 
descendants. But one of the conditions of its remain- 
ing was that its guardian lead a spotlessly pure life, 
and in course of time it came into the hands of one who 
failed to keep himself unsullied ; accordingly the cup 
disappeared. Men became so degenerate that for many 
years the cup was beheld by no one, and it became a 
favorite quest of the knights to seek the marvelous 
vessel. 

One day there entered the hall of knights in Arthur's 
palace a "good old man" bringing with him a young 
knight, whom he proclaimed to be of the king's lineage 
and a descendant of Joseph of Arimathea. This young 
knight was Sir Galahad. The hermit led him to the 
Siege Perilous, meaning the dangerous seat, because 
whoever sat there unworthily was punished by heaven 
with death. When the veil that covered the Siege 



THE LEGEND OF THE HOLY GRAIL 23 

Perilous was lifted the knights beheld the words, "This 
is the seat of Sir Galahad, the good knight." 

Already Sir Gawain had taken oath to seek for the 
Sangreal for twelve months and a day, and all the 
knights had followed his example. So Arthur said : 
"Now, at this quest of the Sangreal shall all ye of the 
Round Table depart, and never shall I see you again 
all together; therefore I will that ye all repair to the 
meadow of Camelot, for to joust and tourney yet once 
more before ye depart." But his desire was to test 
Sir Galahad. That day Sir Galahad overthrew all the 
other knights except Sir Launcelot and Sir Perceval. 
After that they went to the minster to service, and 
then all departed, singly or by twos, in fulfillment of 
their vows. 

The months passed by and they met many and mani- 
fold adventures, delivering maidens from men and 
beasts, fighting for the sake of glory, encountering 
witches, magicians, and demons ; but they succeeded 
not in their quest of the Holy Grail. 

It happened that as Sir Launcelot was riding aim- 
lessly in a wild forest he chanced upon a cross that 
designated the way, beyond which he saw a chapel. 
He "tied his horse till a tree" and went to the broken 
door, but could not enter ; no one was within, though 
he saw through the chinks in the door "a fair altar 
full richly arrayed with cloth of clean silk, and there 
stood a fair, clean candlestick which bare six great 
candles, and the candlestick was of silver." He re- 
turned to his horse, and, lying down upon his shield, 
fell asleep. 



24 LOWELL'S POEMS 

In a vision he saw two white palfreys approach bear- 
ing a wounded knight in a litter. And Sir Launcelot 
heard the wounded man cry, "O sweet Lord, when 
shall this sorrow leave me, and when shall the holy 
vessel come by me whereby I shall be healed?" And 
as he spoke, the candlestick and the tapers moved be- 
fore the cross, and after them came a salver of silver 
with the Holy Grail. Then the sick man was healed 
and went away praising God and marveling at Launce- 
lot, who was so sluggish as to sleep when the sacred 
relic was passing by. 

Then Launcelot awaked, grieving, for he knew that 
it was because of his sin he had not been allowed 
to behold the Holy Grail except in a dream. He arose 
and went to a hermitage and confessed all his sins, 
and, having taken new vows of faithfulness, he set out 
again on his quest. 

Finally one evening he came before a. great castle 
by the sea, and he heard a voice say, " Launcelot, enter 
into the castle, where thou shalt see a great part of 
thy desire." So he went in, and all the doors were 
open before him, until he came to the last chamber, the 
door of which was shut, and he was unable to open it. 
He kneeled down before the door and prayed ; then it 
was opened, and in the midst of the chamber he saw 
a table of silver and upon it a sacred vessel. Launce- 
lot, forgetting a prohibition to enter, advanced into the 
chamber. A breath that seemed of fire threw him into 
a swoon from which he did not recover until after 
twenty-four days. Then he knew that the quest of the 



THE LEGEND OF THE HOLY GRAIL 



25 



Sangreal was achieved as far as it ever would be by 
him, and he returned to the country of Arthur. 

Two other knights there were, besides Sir Galahad 
and Sir Launcelot, to whom it was vouchsafed to be- 
hold the Holy Grail — Sir Perceval and Sir Bohort. 
After months spent in the quest, it happened that Sir 
Galahad found Perceval hard set by some twenty 
knights ; putting spurs to his horse, he rushed into the 
midst and put to flight those who escaped the weight 
of his sword. In his pursuit of the fugitives, Sir Per- 
ceval was left behind, and at night Sir Galahad stopped 
at a hermitage in the forest. Ere long a maiden 
knocked at the door and desired to speak with the 
knight. "Sir Galahad," she said, "I will that ye arm 
and mount your horse and follow me, for I will show 
you the highest adventure that ever knight saw." 

So Galahad went out and followed her till they came 
to the sea, where they saw a ship waiting. Then Gala- 
had and the damsel, who was Sir Perceval's sister, left 
their horses and entered the ship, where they found 
Sir Bohort, or Bors, and Sir Perceval. 

All that day and the next the wind and sea drove the 
ship swiftly along, until they came between two rocks, 
and they found it impossible to proceed. They beheld 
another ship, however, and the damsel bade them enter 
it ; so Galahad went over to it, and after him came the 
maiden, and then Sir Perceval and Bohort. On board 
they found the table of silver and the Holy Grail, which 
was covered with red samite. After doing reverence 
to the Sangreal, they sailed away in the new ship, 
which carried them to the city of Serras. 



26 LOWELL'S POEMS 

In this city of the Paynims they were imprisoned for 
a year, at the end of which time the tyrant of the city 
died and Sir Galahad was chosen king. After he had 
worn the crown for a year and a day, the three young 
knights went to the chapel one morning, according to 
their custom, and as they entered the place where the 
Grail was to be, lo ! they beheld one in the likeness of 
Christ, who bade Sir Galahad stand forth and look 
upon the Sangreal as he uncovered it. Then, accord- 
ing to the promise that had been given him, Sir Gala- 
had desired to depart this life, as he had accomplished 
his mission, and his prayer was granted. 

After this, Sir Perceval retired to a hermitage to 
lead a holy life, but Sir Bohort retained his secular 
garb, for he desired to return to his friends of the 
Round Table. After a year and two months more, 
Perceval died, and Sir Bohort set out for the palace of 
Arthur. When he came to the Table Round, he found 
the other knights returned, and he told them all that 
had befallen him and his companions. Thus ended the 
quest of the Holy Grail. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 
Prelude to Part First, 
i. 
Over his keys the musing organist, 

Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
First lets his fingers wander as they list, 

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay ; 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 27 

Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, 

First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 
Along the wavering vista of his dream. 

II. 

Not only around our infancy 

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; 10 

Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 

We Sinais climb and know it not. 

ill. 

Over our manhood bend the skies ; 

Against our fallen and traitor Jives 
The great winds utter prophecies ; 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives ; 
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite ; 
And to our age's drowsy blood 

Still shouts the inspiring sea. 20 

IV. 

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us ; 

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, 

We bargain for the graves we lie in ; 
At the devil's booth are all things sold, 
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold ; 

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, 
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking: 



2& LOWELL'S POEMS 

'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 
'Tis only God may be had for the asking; 30 

No price is set on the lavish summer ; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 



v. 

And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 40 
And, groping blindly above it for light, 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace ; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 50 

And lets his illumined being o'errun 

With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ? 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 



29 



VI. 

Now is the high-tide of the year, 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer 

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay ; 60 

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 
We are happy now because God wills it ; 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green ; 
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing ; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear 
That dandelions are blossoming near, 7° 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, 
That the river is bluer than the sky, 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by ; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
For other couriers we should not lack ; 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, — > 
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer, 
Warmed with the new wine of the year, 

Tells all in his lusty crowing! 



VII. 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; 
Everything is happy now, 

Everything is upward striving ; 
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 



80 



30 LOWELL'S POEMS 

Tis the natural way of living : 
Who knows whither the clouds have fled? 

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake ; 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, 

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; 
The soul partakes the season's youth, 90 

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, 

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 
What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
Remembered the keeping of his vow ? 



Part First. 



'My golden spurs now bring to me, 

And bring to me my richest mail, 
For to-morrow I go over land and sea 

In search of the Holy Grail ; 
Shall never a bed for me be spread, 100 

Nor shall a pillow be under my head, 
Till I begin my vow to keep ; 
Here on the rushes will I sleep. 
And perchance there n ay come a vision true 
Ere day create the world anew." 

Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, 

Slumber fell like a cloud on him, 
And into his soul the vision flew. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 31 

11. 

The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 

In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, 110 

The little birds sang as if it were 

The one day of summer in all the year, - 
And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees : 
The castle alone in the landscape lay 
Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray ; 
'Twas the proudest hall in the North Countree, 
And never its gates might opened be, 
Save to lord or lady of high degree ; 
Summer besieged it on every side, 
But the churlish stone her assaults defied; 120 

She could not scale the chilly wall, 
Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall 
Stretched left and right, 
Over the hills and out of sight ; 

Green and broad was every tent, 

And out of each a murmur went 
Till the breeze fell off at night. 

in. 

The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, 
And through the dark arch a charger sprang, 
Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, 13 ° 

In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 
Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall 

In his siege of three hundred summers long, 
And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 



32 LOWELL'S POEMS 

Had cast them forth : so, young and strong, 
And lightsome as a locust-leaf, 
Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden mail, 
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 

IV. 

It was morning on hill and stream and tree, 140 

And morning in the young knight's heart ; 

Only the castle moodily 

Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 
And gloomed by itself apart ; 

The season brimmed all other things up 

Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. 

v. 
As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate, 

He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same, 
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate ; 

And a loathing over Sir Launfal came ; 150 

The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, 

The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl, 
And midway its leap his heart stood still 

Like a frozen waterfall ; 
For this man, so foul and bent of stature, 
Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, 
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, — 
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 

VI. 

The leper raised not the gold from the dust : 

"Better to me the poor man's crust, ieo 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 33 

Better the blessing of the poor, 
Though I turn me empty from his door ; 
That is no true alms which the hand can hold ; 
He gives only the worthless gold 

Who gives from a sense of duty ; 
But he who gives but a slender mite, 
And gives to that which is out of sight, 

That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms. 170 

The heart outstretches its eager palms, 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To the soul that was starving in darkness before." 



Prelude to Part Second. 



Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, 
From the snow five thousand summers old ; 

On open wold and hill-top bleak 
It had gathered all the cold, 

And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek ; 

It carried a shiver everywhere 

From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare ; 18 ° 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof ; 

All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 

He groined his arches and matched his beams ; 

Slender and clear were his crystal spars 

As the lashes of light that trim the stars : 



34 



LOWELL'S POEMS 



He sculpture every summer delight 

In his halls and chambers out of sight; 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 

Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 190 

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 

Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 

But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 

Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; 

Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here 

He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 

And hung them thickly with diamond drops, 20 ° 

That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, 

And made a star of every one : 

No mortal builder's most rare device 

Could match this winter-palace of ice ; 

'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay 

In his depths serene through the summer day, 

Each Meeting shadow of earth and sky, 

Lest the happy model should be lost, 
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 

By the elfin builders of the frost. 210 

it. 
Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, 
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 

With lightsome green of ivy and holly ; 
Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 35 

Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 

Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 220 

And swift little troops of silent sparks, 

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, 
Go threading the soot- forest's tangled darks 

Like herds of startled deer. 

in. 

Rut the wind without was eager and sharp, 
Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, 
And rattles and wrings 
The icy strings, 

Singing, in dreary monotone, 

A Christmas carol of its own, 230 

Whose burden still, as he might guess, 

Was — ''Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!" 
The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 
As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, 
And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 

The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 

Through the window-slits of the castle old, 
Build out. its piers of ruddy light 

Against the drift of the cold. 



36 LOWELL'S POEMS 

Part Second. 

i. 
There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 2 ^° 

The bare boughs rattled shudcleringly ; 
The river was dumb and could not speak, 

For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun ; 
A single crow on the tree-top bleak 

From its shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; 
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, 
As if her veins were sapless and old, 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 

n. 

Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, 250 

For another heir in his earldom sate ; 

An old, bent man, worn out and frail, 

He came back from seeking the Holy Grail ; 

Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 

No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, 

But deep in his soul the sign he wore, 

The badge of the suffering and the poor. 



in. 

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, 
For it was just at the Christmas time; 
So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, 



260 



And sought for a shelter from cold and snow 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 



37 



In the light and warmth of long-ago; 

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 

O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 

Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 

He can count the camels in the sun, 

As over the red-hot sands they pass 

To where, in its slender necklace of grass, 

The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, 270 

And with its own self like an infant played, 

And waved its signal of palms. 



IV. 

"For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms !" — 
The happy camels may reach the spring, 
But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, 
The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, 
That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 
And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas, 
In the desolate horror of his disease. 



v. 

And Sir Launfal said — "I behold in thee 230 

An image of Him who died on the tree ; 

Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 

Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns, — 

And to thy life were not denied 

The wounds in the hands and feet and side : 

Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 

Behold, through him, I give to thee !" 



38 LOWELL'S POEMS 

VI. 

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 

And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 
Remembered in what a haughtier guise 29 ° 

He had flung an alms to leprosie, 
When he girt his young life up in gilded mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
The heart within him was ashes and dust ; 
He parted in twain his single crust, 
He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink, 
'Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 

'Twas water out of a wooden bowl, — 
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 300 

And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. 

VII. 

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, 

A light shone round about the place ; 

The leper no longer crouched at his side, 

But stood before him glorified, 

Shining and tall and fair and straight 

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, — 

Himself the Gate whereby men can 

Enter the temple of God in Man. 

VIII. 

His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 
And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, 310 
That mingle their softness and quiet in one 
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 39 

And the voice that was softer than silence said, 

"Lo, it is I, be not afraid ! 

In many climes, without avail, 

Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail ; 

Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 

Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now ; 

This crust is my body broken for thee, 320 

This water his blood that died on the tree ; 

The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 

In whatso we share with another's need ; 

Not what we give, but what we share, 

For the gift without the giver is bare ; 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 

Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 

IX. 

Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound : 

"The Grail in my castle here is found; 

Hang my idle armor up on the wall, 330 

Let it be the spider's banquet-hall ; 

He must be fenced with stronger mail 

Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." 

x. 

The castle gate stands open now, 

And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 

As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough ; 
No longer scowl the turrets tall, 

The Summer's long siege at last is o'er ; 

When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 

$he entered with hjm in disguise, 340 



40 



LOWELL'S POEMS 



And mastered the fortress by surprise ; 

There is no spot she loves so well on ground, 

She lingers and smiles there the whole year round 

The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land 

Has hall and bower at his command ; 

And there's no poor man in the North Countree 

But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 



RHCECUS. 

God sends his teachers unto every age, 
To every clime, and every race of men, 
With revelations fitted to their growth 
And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth 
Into the selfish rule of one sole race : 
Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed 
The life of man, and given it to grasp 
The master-key of knowledge, reverence, 
Enfolds some germs of goodness and of right ; 
Else never had the eager soul, which loathes 10 

The slothful down of pampered ignorance, 
Found in it even a moment's fitful rest. 

There is an instinct in the human heart 
Which makes that all the fables it hath coined 
To justify the reign of its belief 
And strengthen it by beauty's right divine, 
Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift, 
Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful hands, 
Points surely to the hidden springs of truth. 



RHCECUS 41 

For, as in nature naught is made in vain, 20 

But all things have within their hull of use 

A wisdom and a meaning which may speak 

Of spiritual secrets to the ear 

Of spirit ; so, in whatsoe'er the heart 

Hath fashioned for a solace to itself, 

To make its inspirations suit its creed, 

And from the niggard hands of falsehood wring 

Its needful food of truth, there ever is 

A sympathy with Nature, which reveals, 

Not less than her own works, pure gleams of light 30 

And earnest parables of inward lore. 

Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece, 

As full of freedom, youth, and beauty still 

As the immortal freshness of that grace 

Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze. 

A youth named Rhoecus, wandering in the wood, 
Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall, 
And, feeling pity of so fair a tree, 
He propped its gray trunk with admiring care, 
And with a thoughtless footstep loitered on. 40 

But, as he turned, he heard a voice behind 
That murmured ''Rhoecus!" Twas as if the leaves, 
Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it. 
And, while he paused bewildered, yet again 
It murmured "Rhcecus !" softer than a breeze. 
He started, and beheld with dizzy eyes 
What seemed the substance of a happy dream 
Stand there before him, spreading a warm glow 
Within the green glooms of the shadowy oak. 



42 LOWELL'S POEMS 



50 



It seemed a woman's shape, yet all too fair 

To be a woman, and with eyes too meek 

For any that were wont to mate with gods. 

All naked like a goddess stood she there, 

And like a goddess all too beautiful 

To feel the guilt-born earthliness of shame. 

"Rhoecus, I am the Dryad of this tree," 

Thus she began, dropping her low-toned words 

Serene, and full, and clear, as drops of dew, 

"And with it I am doomed to live and die ; 

The rain and sunshine are my caterers, ^0 

Nor have I other bliss than simple life ; 

Now ask me what thou wilt, that I can give, 

And with a thankful joy it shall be thine." 

Then Rhcecus, with a flutter at the heart, 
Yet, by the prompting of such beauty, bold, 
Answered: "What is there that can satisfy 
The endless craving of the soul but love ? 
Give me thy love, or but the hope of that 
Which must be evermore my spirit's goal." 
After a little pause she said again, 70 

But with a glimpse of sadness in her tone, 
"I give it, Rhoecus, though a perilous gift; 
An hour before the sunset meet me here." 
And straightway there was nothing he could se5 
But the green glooms beneath the shadowy oak, 
And not a sound came to his straining ears 
But the low trickling rustle of the leaves, 
And far away upon an emerald slope 
The falter of an idle shepherd's pipe. 



RHCECUS 43 



Now, in those days of simpleness and faith, 
Men did not think that happy things were dreams 
Because they overstepped the narrow bourne 
Of likelihood, but reverently deemed 
Nothing too wondrous or too beautiful 
To be the guerdon of a daring heart. 
So Rhoecus made no doubt that he was blest, 
And all along unto the city's gate 
Earth seemed to spring beneath him as he walked 
The clear, broad sky looked bluer than its wont, 
And he could scarce believe he had not wings, 
Such sunshine seemed to glitter through his veins 
Instead of blood, so light he felt and strange. 

Young Rhoecus had a faithful heart enough, 
But one that in the present dwelt too much 
And, taking with blithe welcome whatsoe'er 
Chance gave of joy, was wholly bound in that, 
Like the contented peasant of a vale, 
Deemed it the world, and never looked beyond. 
So, haply meeting in the afternoon 
Some comrades who were playing at the dice, 
He joined them and forgot all else beside. 

The dice were rattling at the merriest, 
And Rhoecus, who had met. but sorry luck, 
Just laughed in triumph at a happy throw, 
When through the room there hummed a yellow bee 
That buzzed about his ear with down-dropped legs 
As if to light. And Rhoecus laughed and said, 
Feeling how red and flushed he was with loss, 



80 



90 



100 



44 



LOWELL'S POEMS 



"By Venus ! does he take me for a rose ?" 

And brushed him off with rough, impatient hand. n0 

But still the bee came back, and thrice again 

Rhoecus did beat him off with growing wrath. 

Then through the window flew the wounded bee, 

And Rhoecus, tracking him with angry eyes, 

Saw a sharp mountain peak of Thessaly 

Against the red disk of the setting sun, — 

And instantly the blood sank from his heart, 

As if its very walls had caved away. 

Without a word he turned, and, rushing forth, 

Ran madly through the city and the gate, 120 

And o'er the plain, which now the wood's long shade, 

By the low sun thrown forward broad and dim. 

Darkened well-nigh unto the city's wall. 

Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree, 
And, listening fearfully, he heard once more 
The low voice murmur "Rhoecus !" close at hand : 
Whereat he looked around him, but could see 
Naught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak. 
Then sighed the voice, "O Rhoecus ! nevermore 
Shalt thou behold me or by day or night, 13 ° 

Me, who would fain have blessed thee with a love 
More ripe and bounteous than ever yet 
Filled up with nectar any mortal heart : 
But thou didst scorn my humble messenger, 
And send'st him back to me with bruised wings. 
We spirits only show to gentle eyes. 
We ever ask an undivided love, 
And he who scorns the least of nature's works 



RHCECUS 45 

Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from all. 

Farewell ! for thou canst never see me more." 140 

Then Rhcecus beat his breast, and groaned aloud, 
And cried, "Be pitiful ! forgive me yet 
This once, and I shall never need it more !" 
"Alas!" the voice returned, "'tis thou are blind, 
Not I unmerciful ; I can forgive, 
But have no skill to heal thy spirit's eyes ; 
Only the soul hath power o'er itself." 
With that again there murmured "Nevermore !" 
And Rhcecus after heard no other sound, 
Except the rattling of the oak's crisp leaves, 150 

Like the long surf upon a distant shore, 
Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and down. 
The night had gathered round him : o'er the plain 
The city sparkled with its thousand lights, 
And sounds of revel fell upon his ear 
Harshly and like a curse ; above, the sky, 
With all its bright sublimity of stars, 
Deepened, and on his forehead smote the breeze : 
Beauty was all around him and delight, 
But from that eve he was alone on earth. 160 



46 LOWELL'S POEMS 

A CHIPPEWA LEGEND. 

T. 

The old Chief, feeling now well-nigh his end, 
Called his two eldest children to his side, 
And gave them, in few words, his parting charge ! 
"My son and daughter, me ye see no more; 
The happy hunting-grounds await me, green 
With change of spring and summer through the year : 
But, for remembrance, after I am gone, 
Be kind to little Sheemah for my sake : 
Weakling he is and young, and knows not yet 
To set the trap, or draw the seasoned bow ; 10 

Therefore of both your loves he hath more need, 
And he, who needeth love, to love hath right ; 
It is not like our furs and stores of corn, 
Wliereto we claim sole title by our toil, 
But the Great Spirit plants it in our hearts, 
And waters it, and gives it sun, to be 
The common stock and heritage of all : 
Therefore be kind to Sheemah, that yourselves 
May not be left deserted in your need." 

ii. 
Alone, beside a lake, their wigwam stood, 20 

Far from the other dwellings of their tribe, 
And, after many moons, the loneliness 
Wearied the elder brother, and he said, 
"Why should I dwell here far from men, shut out 
From the free, natural joys that fit my age? 



A CHIPPEWA LEGEND 47 



Lo, I am tall and strong, well skilled to hunt, 

Patient of toil and hunger, and not yet 

Have seen the danger which I dared not look 

Full in the face ; what hinders me to be 

A mighty Brave and Chief among my kin ?" 

So, taking up his arrows and his bow, 

As if to hunt, he journeyed swiftly on, 

Until he gained the wigwams of his tribe. 

Where, choosing out a bride, he soon forgot, 

In all the fret and bustle of new life, 

The little Sheemah and his father's charge. 



30 



in. 

Now, when the sister found her brother gone, 
And that, for many days, he came not back, 
She wept for Sheemah more than for herself ; 
For Love bides longest in a woman's heart, 40 

And flutters many times before he flies, 
And then doth perch so nearly, that a word 
May lure hiin back to his accustomed nest; 
And Duty lingers even when Love is gone, 
Oft looking out in hope of his return ; 
And, after Duty hath been driven forth, 
Then Selfishness creeps in the last of all, 
Warming her lean hands at the lonely hearth, 
And crouching o'er the embers, to shut out 
Whatever paltry warmth and light are left, 50 

With avaricious greed, from all beside. 
So, for long months, the sister hunted wide, 
And cared for little Sheemah tenderly ; 
But, daily more and more, the loneliness 



4 8 LOWELL'S POEMS 

Grew wearisome, and to herself she sighed, 

"Am I not fair? at least the glassy pool, 

That hath no cause to flatter, tells me so ; 

But, O, how flat and meaningless the tale, 

L T nless it tremble on a lover's tongue ! 

Beauty hath no true glass, except it be 60 

In the sweet privacy of loving eyes." 

Thus deemed she idly, and forgot the lore 

Which she had learned of nature and the woods, 

That beauty's chief reward is to itself, 

And that Love's mirror holds no image long 

Save of the inward fairness, blurred and lost 

Unless kept clear and white by Duty's care. 

So she went forth and sought the haunts of men, 

And, being wedded, in her household cares, 

Soon, like the elder brother, quite forgot 

The little Sheemah and her father's charge. 



70 



IV. 

But Sheemah, left alone within the lodge, 
Waited and waited, with a shrinking heart, 
Thinking each rustle was his sister's step. 
Till hope grew less and less, and then went out, 
And every sound was changed from hope to fear. 
Few sounds there were : — the dropping of a nut, 
The squirrel's chirrup, and the jay's harsh scream, 
Autumn's sad remnants of blithe Summer's cheer, 
Heard at long intervals, seemed but to make 80 

The dreadful void of silence silenter. 
Soon what small store his sister left was gone, 
And, through the Autumn, he made shift to live 



A CHIPPEWA LEGEND 



49 



On roots and berries, gathered in much fear 

Of wolves, whose ghastly howl he heard ofttimes, 

Hollow and hungry, at the dead of night. 

But Winter came at last, and when the snow, 

Thick-heaped for gleaming leagues o'er hill and plain, 

Spread its unbroken silence over all, 

Made bold by hunger, he was fain to glean 90 

(More sick at heart than Ruth, and all alone) 

After the harvest of the merciless wolf, 

Grim Boaz, who, sharp-ribbed and gaunt, yet feared 

A thing more wild and starving than himself ; 

Till, by degrees, the wolf and he grew friends, 

And shared together all the winter through. 

v. 
Late in the Spring, when all the ice was gone, 
The elder brother, fishing in the lake, 
Upon whose edge his father's wigwam stood, 
Heard a low murmuring noise upon the shore: 
Half like a child it seemed, half like a wolf, 
And straightway there was something in his heart 
That said, "It is thy brother Sheemah's voice." 
So, paddling swiftly to the bank, he saw, 
Within a little thicket close at hand, 
A child that seemed fast changing to a wolf. 
From the neck downward, gray with shaggy hair, 
That still crept on and upward as he looked. 
The face was turned away, but well he knew 
That it was Sheemah's, even his brother's face. 110 
Then with his trembling hands he hid his eyes, 
And bowed his head, so that he might not see 



5o 



LOWELL'S POEMS 



The first look of his brother's eyes, and cried, 

"O Sheemah ! O my brother, speak to me ! 

Dost thou not know me, that I am thy brother? 

Come to me, little Sheemah, thou shalt dwell 

With me henceforth, and know no care or want !" 

Sheemah was silent for a space, as if 

'Twere hard to summon up a human voice, 

And, when he spake, the voice was as a wolf's : 120 

"I know thee not, nor art thou what thou say'st ; 

I have none other brethren than the wolves, 

And, till thy heart be changed from what it is, 

Thou art not worthy to be called their kin." 

Then groaned the other, with a choking tongue, 

"Alas ! my heart is changed right bitterly ; 

'Tis shrunk and parched within me even now !" 

And, looking upward fearfully, he saw 

Only a wolf that shrank away and ran, 

Ugly and fierce, to hide among the woods. 13 ° 



AMBROSE. 



Never, surely, was holier man 

Than Ambrose, since the world began ; 

With diet spare and raiment thin 

He shielded himself from the father of sin ; 

With bed of iron and scourgings oft, 

His heart to God's hand as wax made soft. 



AMBROSE 51 

II. 

Through earnest prayer and watchings long 

He sought to know 'tween right and wrong, 

Much wrestling with the blessed Word 

To make it yield the sense of the Lord, 10 

That he might build a storm-proof creed 

To fold the flock in at their need. 

in. 
At last he builded a perfect faith, 
Fenced round about with The Lord thus saith; 
To himself he fitted the doorway's size, 
Meted the light to the need of his eyes, 
And knew, by a sure and inward sign, 
That the work of his fingers was divine. 

IV. 

Then Ambrose said, "All those shall die 

The eternal death who believe not as I." 20 

And some were boiled, some burned in fire, 

Some sawn in twain, that his heart's desire, 

For the good of men's souls, might be satisfied 

By the drawing of all to the righteous side. 

v. 
Que day, as Ambrose was seeking the truth 
In his lonely walk, he saw a youth 
Resting himself in the shade of a tree ; 
It had never been granted him to see 
So shining a face, and the good man thought 
'Twere pity he should not believe as he ought, 30 



52 LOWELL'S POEMS 



VI. 

So he set himself by the young man's side, 
And the state of his soul with questions tried ; 
But the heart of the stranger was hardened indeed, 
Nor received the stamp of the one true creed ; 
And the spirit of Ambrose waxed sore to find 
Such features the porch of so narrow a mind. 

VII. 

"As each beholds in cloud and fire 

The shape that answers his own desire, 

So each," said the youth, "in the Law shall find 

The figure and fashion of his mind ; 40 

And to each in his mercy God has allowed 

His several pillar of fire and cloud." 

VIII. 

The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal 
And holy wrath for the young man's weal : 
"Believest thou then, most wretched youth/' 
Cried he, " a dividual essence in Truth ? 
1 fear me thy heart is too cramped with sin 
To take the Lord in his glory in." 

IX. 

Now there bubbled beside them where they stood 
A fountain of waters sweet and good ; 50 

The youth to the streamlet's brink drew near 
Saying, "Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here !" 
Six vases of crystal then he took, 
And set them along the edge of the brook. 



A PARABLE 53 

X. 

"As into these vessels the water I pour, 

There shall one hold less, another more, 

And the water unchanged, in every case, 

Shall put on the figure of the vase ; 

O thou, who wouldst unity make through strife. 

Canst thou fit this sign to the Water of Life?" c0 

XI. 

When Ambrose looked up, he stood alone, 

The youth and the stream and the vases were gone ; 

But he knew, by a sense of humbled grace, 

He had talked with an angel face to face, 

And felt his heart change inwardly, 

As he fell on his knees beneath the tree. 



A PARABLE. 

Worn and footsore was the Prophet 
When he reached the holy hill ; 

"God has left the earth," he murmured, 
"Here his presence lingers still. 

"God of all the olden prophets, 
Wilt thou talk with me no more ? 

Have I not as truly loved thee 
As thy chosen ones of yore? 



10 



20 



54 LOWELL'S POEMS 

"Hear me, guider of my fathers, 
Lo, an humble heart is mine ; 

By thy mercy I beseech thee, 
Grant thy servant but a sign!" 

Bowing then his head, he listened 
For an answer to his prayer ; 

No loud burst of thunder followed, 
Not a murmur stirred the air : 

But the tuft of moss before him 
Opened while he waited yet, 

And from out the rock's hard bosom 
Sprang a tender violet. 

"God ! I thank thee," said the Prophet, 
"Hard of heart and blind was I, 
Looking to the holy mountain 
For the gift of prophecy. 



"Still thou speakest with thy children 

Freely as in Eld sublime, 
Humbleness and love and patience 

Give dominion over Time. 



"Had I trusted in my nature, 

And bad faith in lowly things, 30 

Thou thyself would st then have sought me, 

And set free my spirit's wings. 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 55 

"But I looked for signs and wonders 
That o'er men should give me sway ; 

Thirsting to be more than mortal, 
I was even less than clay. 

"Ere I entered on my journey, 

As I girt my loins to start, 
Ran to me my little daughter, 

The beloved of my heart ; 40 

"In her hand she held a flower, 

Like to this as like may be, 
Which beside my very threshold 

She had plucked and brought to me." 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE. 

1. 

What visionary tints the year puts on, 
When falling leaves falter through motionless air 

Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone ! 
How shimmer the low fiats and pastures bare, 
As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills 
The bowl between me and those distant hills, 
And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous 
hair! 

11. 
No more the landscape holds its wealth apart, 
Making me poorer in my poverty, 



56 LOWELL'S POEMS 

But mingles with my senses and my heart ; 10 

My own projected spirit seems to me 
In her own reverie the world to steep ; 
Tis she that waves to sympathetic sleep, 
Moving, as she is moved, each field and hill and tree. 



in. 

How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees, 
Clasped by the faint horizon's languid arms, 

Each into each, the hazy distances ! 
The softened season all the landscape charms ; 

Those hills, my native village that embay, 

In waves of dreamier purple roll away, 



20 



And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms. 

IV. 

Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee 
Close at my side ; far distant sound the leaves ; 

The fields seem fields of dream, where Memory 
Wanders like gleaning Ruth ; and as the sheaves 
Of wheat and barley wavered in the eye 
Of Boaz as the maiden's glow went by, 
So tremble and seem remote all things the sense 
receives. 

v. 

The cock's shrill trump that tells of scattered corn, 
Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates, 30 

Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne, 
Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits ; 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 57 

Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails ; 
Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails, 
With watchful, measuring eye, and for his quarry 
waits. 

VI. 
The sobered robin, hunger-silent now, 
Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer ; 

The chipmunk, on the shingly shagbark's bough, 
Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear, 
Then drops his nut, and, cheeping, with a bound 40 
Whisks to his winding fastness underground ; 
The clouds like swans drift down the streaming atmos- 
phere. 

VII. 

O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar shadows 
Drowse on the crisp, gray moss; the ploughman's 
call 
Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh-furrowed 
meadows ; 
The single crow a single caw lets fall ; 
And all around me every bush and tree 
Says Autumn's here, and Winter soon will be, 
Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all. 

VIII. 

The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees 50 

Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, 

And hints at her foregone gentilities 
With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves ; 

The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, 

Glares red as blood across the sinking sun, 
As one who proudlier to a falling fortune cleaves. 



58 LOWELL'S POEMS 

IX. 

He looks a sachem, in red blanket wrapt, 
Who, 'mid some council of the sad-garbed white 

Erect and stern, in his own memories lapt, 
With distant eye broods over other sights, 60 

Sees the hushed wood the city's flare replace, 
The wounded turf heal o'er the railway's trace. 
And roams the savage Past of his undwindled rights. 

x. 

The red-oak, softer-grained, yields all for lost, 
And, with his crumpled foliage stiff and dry, 

After the first betrayal of the frost 
Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky ; 

The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid gold, 
To the faint Summer, beggared now and old, 
Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath her favoring 
eye. 70 

XI. 

The ash her purple drops forgivingly 
And sadly, breaking not the general hush ; 

The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea, 
Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush ; 

All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting 

blaze 
Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy days, 
Ere the rain fall, the cautious farmer burns his brush. 

XII. 

O'er yon low wall, which guards one unkempt 
zone. 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 59 

Where vines and weeds and scrub-oaks intertwine 
Safe from the plough, whose rough, discordant 
stone 
Is massed to one soft gray by lichens fine, 

The tangled blackberry, crossed and recrossed, 

weaves 
A prickly network of ensanguined leaves ; 
Hard by, with coral beads, the prim black-alders shine. 

XIII. 

Pillaring with flame this crumbling boundary, 
Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the ploughboy's 
foot, 
Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye, 
Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot, 
The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires, 
Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires ; 
In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak stands mute. 

XIV. 

Below, the Charles— a stripe of nether sky, 
Now hid by rounded apple-trees between, 

Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying by, 
Now flickering golden through a woodland screen, 
Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond, 
A silver circle like an inland pond — 
Slips seaward silently through marshes purple and 
green. 

xv. 
Dear marshes ! vain to him the gift of sight 
Who cannot in their various incomes share, 



60 LOWELL'S POEMS 

From every season drawn, of shade and light, 
Who sees in them but levels brown and bare ; 
Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free 
On them its largess of variety, 
For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders 
rare. 

xvi. 
In Spring they lie one broad expanse of green, 
O'er which the light winds run with glimmering 
feet: 
Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen, 
There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet ; 
And purpler stains show where the blossoms 

crowd, 
As if the silent shadow of a cloud no 

Hung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet. 

XVII. 

All round, upon the river's slippery edge, 
Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide, 

Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling sedge; 
Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide, 

Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the sun, 

And the stiff banks in eddies melt and run 
Of dimpling light, and with the current seem to glide. 

XVIII. 

In Summer 'tis a blithesome sight to see, 120 

As, step by step, with measured swing, they pass, 

The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee, 
Their sharp scythes panting through the wiry grass ; 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 61 

Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in a ring, 
Their nooning take, while one begins to sing 
A stave that droops and dies 'neath the close sky of 
brass. 

XIX. 

Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink, 
Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops 

Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, 
And 'twixt the windrows most demurely drops, 130 

A decorous bird of business, who provides 

For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, 
And looks from right to left, a farmer 'mid his crops. 

xx. 

Another change subdues them in the Fall, 
But saddens not ; they still show merrier tints, 

Though sober russet seems to cover all ; 
When the first sunshine through their dew-drops 
glints, 
Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across, 
Redeems with rarer hues the season's loss, 
As Dawn's feet there had touched and left their rosy 
• , 140 

prints. 

XXI. 

Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest, 
Lean o'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill, 

While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west, 
Glow opposite ;— the marshes drink their fill 

And swoon with purple veins, then slowly fade 

Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the 
shade, 



62 LOWELL'S POEMS 

Lengthening with stealthy creep, of SimoncTs darken- 
ing hill. 

XXII. 

Later, and yet ere Winter wholly shuts, 150 

Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates, 

And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, 
While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, 

Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire, 
And until bedtime plays with his desire, 
Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought 
skates ; — 

XXIII. 

Then, every morn, the river's banks shine bright, 
With smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail, 

By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night, 
'Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail, 
Giving a pretty emblem of the day 
When guiltier arms in light shall melt away, 160 
And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war's 
cramping mail. 

XXIV. 

And now those waterfalls the ebbing river 
Twice every day creates on either side 

Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they 
shiver 
In grass-arched channels to the sun denied ; 
High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow, 
The silvered fiats gleam frostily below, 
Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide. 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 63 

XXV. 

But crowned in turn by vying seasons three, 
Their winter halo hath a fuller ring; 170 

This glory seems to rest immovably, — 
The others were too fleet and vanishing ; 
When the hid tide is at its highest flow, 
O'er marsh and stream one breathless trance of 
snow 
With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything. 



xxvi. 

The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind, 
As pale as formal candles lit by day ; 

Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind ; 
The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in 
play, 
Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee, 180 
White crests as of some just enchanted sea, 
Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised mid- 
way. 

XXVII. 

But when the eastern blow, with rain aslant, 
From mid-sea's prairies green and rolling plains 

Drives in his wallowing herds of billows gaunt, 
And the roused Charles remembers in his veins 

Old Ocean's blood and snaps his gyves of frost, 

That tyrannous silence on the shores is tost 
In dreary wreck, and crumbling desolation reigns, 



6 4 LOWELL'S POEMS 

XXVIII. 

Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like device, 190 

With leaden pools between or gullies bare, 

The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stonehenge of ice ; 
No life, no sound, to break the grim despair, 
Save sullen plunge, as through the sedges stiff 
Down crackles riverward some thaw-sapped cliff, 
Or when the close-wedged fields of ice crunch here and 
there. 

XXIX. 

But let me turn from fancy-pictured scenes 
To that whose pastoral calm before me lies : 
Here nothing harsh or rugged intervenes ; 
The early evening with her misty dyes 200 

Smooths off the raveled edges of the nigh. 
Relieves the distant with her cooler sky, 
And tones the landscape down, and soothes the wearied 
eyes. 

XXX. 

There gleams my native village, dear to me, 
Though higher change's waves each day are seen, 

Whelming fields famed in boyhood's history, 
Sanding with houses the diminished green ; 

There, in red brick, which softening time defies, 
Stand square and stiff the Muses' factories ; — 
How with my life knit up is every well-known scene ! 

210 

XXXI. 

Flow on, dear river ! not alone you flow 
To outward sight, and through your marshes wind ; 
Fed from the mystic springs of long-ago, 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 65 

Your twin flows silent through my world of mind: 
Grow dim, dear marshes, in the evening's gray ! 
Before my inner sight ye stretch away, 
And will forever, though these fleshly eyes grow blind. 

XXXII. 

Beyond the hillock's house-bespotted swell, 
Where Gothic chapels house the horse and chaise, 

Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell, 23 ° 
Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer and praise, 

Where dust and mud the equal year divide, 

There gentle Allston lived, and wrought, and died, 
Transfiguring street and shop with his illumined gaze. 

XXXIII. 

Virgiliiim vidi tan turn, — I have seen 
But as a boy, who looks alike on all, 

That misty hair, that fine Undine-like mien, 
Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest call ; — 
Ah, dear old homestead ! count it to thy fame 
That hither many times the Painter came ; — 23 ° 
One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree and tall. 

xxxiv. 
Swiftly the present fades in memory's glow, — 
Our only sure possession is the past ; 

The village blacksmith died a month ago, 
And dim to me the forge's roaring blast ; 
Soon fire-new medirevals we shall see 
Oust the black smithy from its chestnut-tree, 
And that hewn down, perhaps, the bee-hive green and 
vast. 



66 LOWELL'S POEMS 

xxxv. 

How many times, prouder than king on throne, 
Loosed from the village school-dame's A's and B's, 

Panting have I the creaky bellows blown, 24 ° 

And watched the pent volcano's red increase, 

Then paused to see the ponderous sledge, brought 

down 
By that hard arm voluminous and brown, 
From the white iron swarm its golden vanishing bees. 

XXXVI. 

Dear native town ! whose choking elms each year 
With eddying dust before their time turn gray, 

Pining for rain, — to me thy dust is dear; 
It glorifies the eve of summer day, 250 

And when the westering sun half sunken burns, 
The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns, 
The westward horseman rides through clouds of gold 
away, 

XXXVII. 

So palpable, I've seen those unshorn few, 
The six old willows at the causey's end 

(Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew), 
Through this dry mist their checkering shadows 
send, 
Striped here and there, with many a long-drawn 

thread, 
Where streamed through leafy chinks the trem- 
bling red, 
Past which, in one bright trail, the hangbird's flashes 
blend, 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 67 

XXXVIII. 

Yes, dearer far thy dust than all that e'er, 260 
Beneath the awarded crown of victory, 

Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer ; 
Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments 
three, 
Yet collcgisse juvat, I am glad 
That here what colleging was mine I had, — 
It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee ! 

XXXIX. 

Nearer art thou than simply native earth. 
My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie ; 

A closer claim thy soil may well put forth. 
Something of kindred more than sympathy ; 270 

For in thy bounds I reverently laid away 

That blinding anguish of forsaken clay, 
That title I seemed to have in earth and sea and sky, 

XL. 

That portion of my life more choice to me 
(Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole) 

Than all the imperfect residue can be ; — 
The Artist saw his statue of the soul 

Was perfect ; so, with one regretful stroke 

The earthen model into fragments broke, 
And without her the impoverished seasons roll. 280 



68 LOWELL'S POEMS 



BEAVER BROOK. 

Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill, 

And minuting the long day's loss, 
The cedar's shadow, slow and still, 

Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss. 

Warm noon brims full the valley's cup, 

The aspen's leaves are scarce astir, 
Only the little mill sends up 

Its busy, never-ceasing burr. 

Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems 

The road along the mill pond's brink. 10 

From 'neath the arching barberry-stems, 
My footstep scares the shy chewink. 

Beneath a bony buttonwood 

The mill's red door lets forth the din ; 

The whitened miller, dust-imbued, 
Flits past, the square of dark within. 

No mountain torrent's strength is here ; 

Sweet Beaver, child of forest still, 
Heaps its small pitcher to the ear 

And gently waits the miller's will. 20 

Swift slips Undine along the race 

Unheard, and then, with flashing bound, 

Floods the dull wheel with light and grace, 
And laughing, hunts the loath drudge round, 



BEAVER BROOK 69 

The miller dreams not at what cost 

The quavering millstones hum and whirl, 

Nor how, for every turn are tost 
Armfuls of diamond and of pearl. 



30 



But Summer cleared my happier eyes 
With drops of some celestial juice, 

To see how Beauty underlies 
Forevermore each form of Use. 

And more : methought I saw that flood, 
Which now so dull and darkling steals, 

Thick, here and there, with human blood, 
To turn the world's laborious wheels. 

No more than doth the miller there, 
Shut in our several cells, do we 

Know with what waste of beauty rare 
Moves every day's machinery. 

Surely the wiser time shall come 
When this fine overplus of might, 

No longer sullen, slow and dumb, 
Shall leap to music and to light. 

In that new childhood of the Earth 
Life of itself shall dance and play, 

Fresh blood through Time's shrunk veins 
make mirth, 
And labor meet delight half-way. 



40 



70 , LOWELL'S POEMS 



TO THE DANDELION. 

i. 

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, 

First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold, 
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found, 

Which not the rich earth's ample round 
May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me 
Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. 

ii. 

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow 

Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, 10 

Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease ; 

'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now 
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 
Though most hearts never understand 
To take it at God's value, but pass by 
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 

in. 
Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; 
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; 20 

The eyes thou givest me 
Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : 
Not in mid- Tune the <rolden-cuirassed bee 



TO THE DANDELION 71 

Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment 
In the white lily's breezy tent, 
His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first 
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. 

IV. 

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, 
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 

Where, as the breezes pass, 30 

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, 
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, 
Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue 

That from the distance sparkle through 
Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, 
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 

v. 
My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with 
thee ; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, 

Who, from the dark old tree 
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, 40 

And I, secure in childish piety, 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing 

With news from heaven, which he could bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears 
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 

VI. 

Thou art the type of those meek charities 
W 7 hich make up half the nobleness of life, 



72 LOWELL'S POEMS 

Those cheap delights the wise 
Pluck from the dusty wayside of earth's strife: 

Words of frank cheer, glances of friendly eyes, 
Love's smallest coin, which yet to some may give 
The morsel that may keep alive 
A starving heart, and teach it to behold 
Some glimpse of God where all before was cold. 



VII. 

Thy winged seeds, whereof the winds take care, 
Are like the words of poet and of sage 

Which through the free heaven fare, 
And, now unheeded, in another age 

Take root, and to the gladdened future bear 
That witness which the present would not heed, 
Bringing forth many a thought and deed, 
And, planted safely in the eternal sky, 
Bloom into stars which earth is guided by. 



VIII. 

Full of deep love thou art, yet not more full 
Than all thy common brethren of the ground. 

Wherein, were we not dull, 
Some words of highest wisdom might be found ; 

Yet earnest faith from day to day may cull 
Some syllables, which, rightly joined, can make 
A spell to soothe life's bitterest ache, 
And ope Heaven's portals, which are near us still. 
Yea, nearer ever than the gates of 111, 



50 



00 



70 



THE BOBOLINK 



73 



IX. 

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art ! 

Thou teachest me to deem 
More sacredly of every human heart. 

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 
Of Heaven, and could some wondrous secret show 
Did we but pay the love we owe, 
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look 80 

On all these living pages of God's book. 

x. 

But let me read thy lesson right or no, 
Of one good gift from thee my heart is sure ; 

Old I shall never grow 
While thou each year dost come to keep me pure 

With legends of my childhood ; ah, we owe 
Well more than half life's holiness to these 
Nature's first lowly influences, 
At thought of which the heart's glad doors burst 

ope, 
In dreariest days, to welcome peace and hope. 90 



THE BOBOLINK. 

Anacreon of the meadow, 
Drunk with the joy of Spring ! 
Beneath the tall pine's voiceful shadow 
I lie and drink thy jargoning; 



74 LOWELL'S POEMS 

My soul is full with melodies, 

One drop would overflow it 

And send the tears into mine eyes — 

But what car'st thou to know it ? 

Thy heart is free as mountain air, 

And of thy lays thou hast no care, 10 

Scattering them gayly everywhere, 

Happy, unconscious poet ! 

L T pon a tuft of meadow grass, 
While thy loved one tends the nest, 
Thou swayest as the breezes pass, 
Unburthening thine o'erfull breast 
Of the crowded songs that fill it, 
Just as joy may choose to will it. 
Lord of thy love and liberty. 

The blithest bird of merry May, 20 

Thou turnest thy bright eyes on me, 
That say as plain as eye can say: 
"Here sit we, here in the summer weather, 
I and my modest mate together ; 
Whatever your wise thoughts may be, 
Under that gloomy old pine tree, 
We do not value them a feather. 

Now, leaving earth and me behind, 
Thou beatest up against the wind, 
Or, floating slowly down before it, 30 

Above thy grass-hid nest thou flutterest 
And thy bridal love-song utterest, 
Raining showers of music o'er it, 



THE BOBOLINK 75 

Weary never, still thou trillest 

Spring-gladsome lays, 

As of moss-rimmed water-brooks 

Murmuring through pebbly nooks 

In quiet summer days. 

Myheart with happiness thou fillest; ^ 

I seem again to be a boy 

Watching thee, gay, blithesome lover, 

O'er the bending grass-tops hover, 

Quivering thy wings for joy. 

There's something in the apple-blossom, 

The greening grass and bobolink's song, 

That wakes again within my bosom 

Feelings which have slumbered long. 

As long, long years ago I wandered, 

I seem to wander even yet, 

The hours the idle schoolboy squandered, 

The man would die ere he'd forget. 

hours that frosty eld deemed wasted, 
Nodding his gray head toward my books, 

1 dearer prize the lore I tasted 

With you, among the trees and brooks, 

Than all that I have gained since then 

From learned books or study-withered men! 

Nature, thy soul was one with mine, 

And, as a sister by a younger brother ^ 

Is loved, each flowing to the other, 

Such love for me was thine. 

Or wert thou not more like a loving mother 

With sympathy and loving power to heal, 

Against whose heart my throbbing heart I'd lay 



76 LOWELL'S POEMS 

Till calm and holiness would o'er me steal ? 

Was not the golden sunset a dear friend? 

Found I no kindness in the silent moon, 

And the green trees, whose tops did sway and bend, 

Low singing evermore their pleasant tune ? 

Felt I no heart in dim and solemn woods, 70 

No loved one's voice in lonely solitudes ? 

Yes ! yes ! unhoodwinked then my spirit's eyes, 

Blind leaders had not taught me to be wise. 

Dear hours ! which now again I over-live, 
Hearing and seeing with the ears and eyes 
Of childhood, ye were bees, that to the hive 
Of my young heart came laden with rich prize, 
Gathered in fields and woods and sunny dells, to be 
My spirit's food in days more wintery. 
Yea, yet again ye come ! ye come ! 80 

And, like a child once more at home 
After long sojourning in alien climes, 
I lie upon my mother's breast, 
Feeling the blessedness of rest, 
And dwelling in the light of other times. 



O ye whose living is not Life, 
Whose dying is but death, 
Song, empty toil, and petty strife, 
Rounded with loss of breath ! 
Go, look on Nature's countenance, 
Drink in the blessing of her glance ; 
Look on the sunset, hear the wind, 
The cataract, the awful thunder ; 



90 



THE PRESENT CRISIS yy 

Go, worship by the sea ; 

Then, and then only, shall ye find, 

With ever-growing wonder, 

Man is not all in all to ye ; 

Go with a meek and humble soul, 

Then shall the scales of self unroll 

From off your eyes ; the weary packs 

Drop from your heavy-laden backs ; 

And ye shall see, 

With reverent and hopeful eyes, 

Glowing with new-born energies, 

How great a thing it is to be. 



100 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



When a deed is done- for Freedom, through the broad 
earth's aching breast 

Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east 
to west, 

And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within 
him climb 

To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime 

Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem 
of Time. 

II. 

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instan- 
taneous throe, 

When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to 
and fro ; 



yS LOWELL'S POEMS 

At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, 
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips 

apart, 
And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath 

the Future's heart. 10 

in. 

So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a 

chill, 
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill, 
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies 

with God 
In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by 

the sod, 
Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the 

nobler clod. 

IV. 

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears 

along, 
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right 

or wrong; 
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's 

vast frame 
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy 

or shame; — 
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal 

claim. 20 

v. 
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to 
decide, 



THE PRESENT CRISIS 79 

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or 

evil side ; 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each 

the bloom or blight, 
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon 

the right, 
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness 

and that light. 

VI. 

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou 

shalt stand, 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust 

against our land ? 
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone 

is strong, 
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her 

throng- 
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all 

wrong. 30 

VII. 

Backward look across the ages and the beacon-mo- 
ments see, 

That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through 
Oblivion's sea; 

Not an ear in court or market for the low, foreboding 
cry 

Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose 
feet earth's chaff must fly ; 

Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment 
hath passed by. 



80 LOWELL'S POEMS 

VIII. 

Careless seems the great Avenger ; history's pages but 

record 
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems 

and the Word : 
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the 

throne, — 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim 

unknown, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above 

his own. !0 

IX. 

We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is 
great, 

Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron 
helm of fate, 

But the soul is still oracular ; amid the market's din, 

List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave 
within, — 

"They enslave their children's children who make com- 
promise with sin." 

x. 

Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant 

brood, 
Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have 

drenched the earth with blood, 
Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our 

purer day, 
Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable 

prey ;— 



THE PRESENT CRISIS 8l 

Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless chil- 
dren play? 50 

XI. 

Then to side with Truth is noble, when we share her 
wretched crust. 

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosper- 
ous to be just ; 

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward 
stands aside, 

Doubting, in his abject spirit, till his Lord is cruci- 
fied, 

And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had 
denied. 

XII. 

Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, — they were souls 
that stood alone, 

While the men they agonized for hurled the contume- 
lious stone, 

Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden 
beam incline 

To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith 
divine. 

By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's 
supreme design. 60 



XIII. 

By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet 

I track, 
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns 

not back, 



82 LOWELL'S POEMS 

And these mounts of anguish number how each genera- 
tion learned 

One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet- 
hearts hath burned 

Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face 
to heaven upturned. 



XIV. 



For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the 

martyr stands. 
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his 

hands ; 
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling 

fagots burn, 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe 

return 
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden 

urn. 70 



xv. 



'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves 

Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves, 

Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light 

a crime ; — 
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by 

men behind their time? 
Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make 

Plvmouth Rock sublime? 



THE PRESENT CRISIS 83 

XVI. 

They were men of present valor, stalwart old icono- 
clasts, 

Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the 
Past's ; 

But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that 
hath made us free, 

Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender 
spirits flee 

The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove 
them across the sea. 80 

XVII. 

They have rights who dare maintain them; we are 

traitors to our sires, 
Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar 

fires ; 
Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our 

haste to slay, 
From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral 

lamps away 
To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of 

to-day ? 

XVIII. 

New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient 

good uncouth ; 
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep 

abreast of Truth ; 
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must 

Pilgrims be, 



84 LOWELL'S POEMS 

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the 
desperate winter sea, 

Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood- 
rusted key. W 



THE FATHERLAND. 

i. 

Where is the true man's fatherland? 

Is it where he by chance is born? 

Doth not the yearning spirit scorn 
In such scant borders to be spanned? 
O yes ! his fatherland must be 
As the blue heaven wide and free ! 

ii. 
Is it alone where freedom is, 

Where God is God and man is man? 

Doth he not claim a broader span 
For the soul's love of home than this? 10 

O yes ! his fatherland must be 
As the blue heaven wide and free ! 

in. 
Where'er a human heart doth wear 

Joy's myrtle-wreath or sorrow's gyves, 

Where'er a human spirit strives 
After a life more true and fair, 
There is the true man's birthplace grand.. 
His is a world-wide fatherland ! 



A SONG 85 



IV. 

Where'er a single slave doth pine, 

Where'er one man may help another, — 
Thank God for such a birthright, brother,— 

That spot of earth is thine and mine ! 

There is the true man's birthplace grand, 

His is a world-wide fatherland. 



20 



A SONG. 



Violet! sweet violet! 
Thine eyes are full of tears ! 
Are they wet 
Even yet 
With the thought of other years? 
Or with gladness are they full, 
For the night so beautiful, 
And longing for those far-off spheres? 

11. 

Loved one of my youth thou wast, 
Of my merry youth, 
And I see, 
Tearfully, 
All the fair and sunny past, 
All its cpenness and truth, 
Ever fresh and green in thee _ 
As the moss is in the sea. 



86 LOWELL'S POEMS 

III. 

Thy little heart, that hath with love 
Grown colored like the sky above, 
On which thon lookest ever, — 

Can it know 20 

All the woe 
Of hope for what returneth never, 
All the sorrow and the longing 
To these hearts of ours belonging ? 

IV. 

Out on it ! no foolish pining 

For the sky 

Dims thine eye, 
Or for the stars so calmly shining; 
Like thee let this soul of mine 
Take hue from that wherefor I long, 30 

Self-stayed and high, serene and strong, 
Not satisfied with hoping — but divine. 

v. 

Violet ! dear violet ! 

Thy blue eyes are only wet 
With joy and love of Him who sent thee, 
And for the fulfilling sense 
Of that glad obedience 
Which made thee all that Nature meant thee ' 



WITH A PRESSED FLOWER 87 



WITH A PRESSED FLOWER. 

This little flower from afar 
Hath come from other lands to thine ; 
For, once, its white and drooping star 
Could see its shadow in the Rhine. 

Perchance some fair-haired German maid 
Hath plucked one from the self-same stalk, 
And numbered over, half afraid, 
Its petals in her evening walk. 

"He loves me, loves me not," she cries ; 

"He loves me more than earth or Heaven," 10 

And then glad tears have filled her eyes 

To find the number was uneven. 

So, Love, my heart doth wander forth 
To farthest lands beyond the sea, 
And search the fairest spots of earth 
To find sweet flowers of thought for thee. 

A type this tiny blossom is 
Of what my heart doth every day, 
Seeking for pleasant fantasies 
To brood upon when thou 'rt away. 



20 



And thou must count its petals well 
Because it is a gift from me ; 
And the last one of all shall tell 
Something I've often told to thee. 



LOWELL'S POEMS 

But here at home, where we were born, 
Thou wilt find flowers just as true, 
Down bending every summer morn 
With freshness of New England dew. 

For Nature, ever right in love, 
Hath given them the same sweet tongue, 3 & 

Whether with German skies above, 
Or here our granite rocks among. 



MY LOVE, 
i. 
Not as all other women are 
Is she that to my soul is dear; 
Her glorious fancies come from far 
Beneath the silver evening-star, 
And yet her heart is ever near. 

n. 
Great feelings hath she of her own 
Which lesser souls may never know ; 
God giveth them to her alone, 
And sweet they are as any tone 
Wherewith the wind may choose to blow. 10 

in. 
Yet in herself she dwelleth not, 
Although no home were half so fair 
No simplest duty is forgot, 
Life hath no dim and lowly spot 
That doth not in her sunshina share. 



20 



MY LOVE 89 



IV. 

She doeth little kindnesses, 
Which most leave undone, or despise, 
For naught that sets one heart at ease, 
And giveth happiness or peace, 
Is low-esteemed in her eyes. 

She hath no scorn of common things, 

And, though she seem of other birth, 
Round us her heart entwines and clings, 
And patiently she folds her wings 
To tread the humble paths of earth. 

Blessing she is : God made her so, 
And deeds of weekday holiness 
Fall from her noiseless as the snow, 
Nor hath she ever chanced to know 
That aught were easier than to bless. 

She is most fair, and thereunto 

Her life doth rightly harmonize ; 
Feeling or thought that was not true 
Ne'er made less beautiful the blue 
Unclouded heaven of her eyes. 



30 



She is a woman : one in whom 

The springtime of her childish years 
Hath never lost its fresh perfume, 
Though knowing well that life hath room 

For many blights and many tears. ^ 



90 LOWELL'S POEMS 

I love her with a love as still 

As a broad river's peaceful might, 

Which, by high tower and lowly mill, 

Goes wandering at its own will, 
And yet doth ever flow aright. 

And. on its full, deep breast serene, 

Like quiet isles my duties lie ; 
It flows around them and between, 
And makes them fresh and fair and green, 

Sweet homes wherein to live and die. 50 



THE CHANGELING. 

I had a little daughter, 

And she was given to me 
To lead me gently backward 

To the Heavenly Father's knee, 
That I, by the force of nature. 

Might in some dim wise divine 
The depth of His infinite patience 

To this wayward soul of mine. 

I know not how others saw her, 

But to me she was wholly fair, 10 

And the light of the heaven she came from 

Still lingered and gleamed in her hair ; 
For it was as wavy and golden, 

And as many changes took, 
As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples 

On the yellow bed of a brook. 



THE CHANGELING 91 

To what can I liken her smiling 

Upon me, her kneeling lover, 
How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids 

And dimpled her wholly over, 20 

Till her outstretched hands smiled also, 

And I almost seemed to see 
The very heart of her mother 

Sending sun through her veins to me ! 

She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth, 

And it hardly seemed a day, 
When a troop of wandering angels 

Stole my darling daughter away ; 
Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari 

But loosed the hampering strings, 30 

And when they had opened the cage-door, 

My little bird used her wings. 



But they left in her stead a changeling, 

A little angel child, 
That seems like her bud in full blossom, 

And smiles as she never smiled ; 
When I wake in the morning I see it 

Where she always used to lie, 
And I feel as weak as a violet 

Alone 'neath the awful sky. 



40 



As weak, yet as trustful also ; 

For the whole year long I see 
All the wonders of faithful Nature 

Still worked for the love of me ; 



£2 LOWELL'S POEMS 

Winds wander and dews drip earthward, 

Rains fall, suns rise and set, 
Earth whirls, and all but to prosper 

A poor little violet. 

This child is not mine as the first was, 

I cannot sing it to rest, 50 

I cannot lift it up fatherly 

And bliss it upon my breast ; 
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle, 

And it sits in my little one's chair, 
And the light of the heaven she's gone to 

Transfigures its golden hair. 



NOTES 
THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

This poem came from the author's pen, substantially as it 
now stands, almost at a single sitting, within the space of 
forty-eight hours. During this time the poet scarcely ate or 
slept. 

"It was almost an improvisation, and its effect upon the 
reader is like that of the outburst of an inspired singer. The 
effect upon the public was immediate and powerful ; the poem 
needed no herald or interpreter." — Underwood. 

"As often as the first eight lines of this poem come to mind, 
I feel a poetic breath not borne to me again from our home 
hills and fields, and rarely wafted from the old lands beyond 
the sea ; and passing on to the thirty-third line, beginning, 

'And what is so rare as a day in June?' 

1 say each time, 'Here and in certain passages of the later 
odes are the purest, the sweetest, and at the same time the 
freshest strains from any singer of our soil." — John Vance 
Cheney. 

Line i. Musing. Consider the particular force of the word. 

2. Doubtfully and far away. Amplify. 

3. List. What word would have been used in prose? 

4. And builds, etc. Can you trace a similar thought in 
Browning's Abt Vogler? 

"Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, 
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, 

Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch . . . 
Should rush into sight at once. . . ." 
93 



94 LOWELL'S POEMS 

5. Touch. Suggest synonyms for the word as used here. 

7. Give in full the comparison suggested by the metaphor 
here. 

8. How may the vista of the organist's dream be termed 
wavering? 

9-to. A reference to the well-known lines of Wordsworth's 
Intimations of Immortality: 

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy; 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
Upon the growing boy." 

Compare also Hood's lines : 

"I remember, I remember, 

The fir-trees dark and high; 
I used to think their slender tops 
Were close against the sky. 

"It was a childish ignorance, 
But now 'tis little joy 
To know I'm farther off from heaven 
Than when I was a boy." 

12. We Sinais climb. It was on Mount Sinai, in the north- 
western part of Arabia, that Moses talked with God and re- 
ceived the Ten Commandments. See Ex. xix, 20. 

13. Compare again Browning's Abt Vogler: 

"And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach 
the earth." 

15. Do the great winds prophesy against us by giving us 
intimations of God, of whom we have been unmindful in al- 
lowing our lives to become fallen and traitor, by suggesting 
to us their obedience to law, as compared with our disregard 
of it; or is there still another explanation? 

16. Does this simply mean that mountains are inspiring? 



NOTES - 94 

Are not the inhabitants of mountainous countries usually 
brave and liberty-loving? With the line compare Childe 
Harold: 

"And to me 
High mountains are a feeling." 

And Wordsworth's Tintem Abbey: 

"The mountains . . . were then to me 
An appetite, a feeling, and a love." 

17. Druid wood. The Druids were the priests, or prophets, 
of the ancient Celts who lived in the woods, performing there 
all religious observances, and giving instruction to the people. 
The figure of the Druid wood has been a favorite with the 
poets. Cf. Evangeline : 

"The murmuring pines and the hemlocks. . . . 
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic." 

Why does the Druid wood utter the benedicite, rather than 
the wind or sea? 

19. Age's. Connect in thought with lines 9 and 13. 

21. Earth gets its price. Observe the contrast with what 
follows : 

" 'Tis heaven alone that is given away." 

22. Beggar. What is the meaning of the word here? Ex- 
plain the thought of the line. 

25. What is the important word in this line? 

27. By what figure is a fool's reward indicated? 

28. What are some of the bubbles we buy? 

29. What is the meaning of heaven as used here? 

33. June was the favorite month of Lowell, as May has 
always been of the English poets. In Under the Willows, he 
says: 

"June is the pearl of our New England year; 

May is a pious fraud of the almanac, 
A ghastly parody of real spring." 



96 LOWELL'S POEMS 

"I think also that The Vision of Sir Launfal owed its suc- 
cess quite as much to presentation of nature as to its misty 
legend. It really is a landscape poem, of which the lovely 
passage, 'And what is so rare as a day in June?' and the 
wintry prelude to Part Second are the specific features." — 
Stedman. 

35-36. Heaven . . . lays. Give in full the comparison 
implied in this metaphor. Compare with the feeling expressed 
in "his loved instrument" of line 5. 

38. What are some of the things in which life murmurs and 
glistens? 

41-42. Explain in full the meaning of these lines. 

43. Flash. Can you suggest another word that will express 
as much in this connection ? 

46. The buttercup . . . chalice. Is there a special fit- 
ness in speaking of the chalice of the buttercup as catching 
the sun? What is the figure? 

50. What special form does stilt give to the picture? 

51. Read this line, emphasizing in turn lets, illumined being, 
and o'errun. 

54. Why dumb breast? 

55. Swinton asks what human application can be made of 
this line. 

56. Suggest synonyms of nice. Can you answer the ques- 
tion? 

"What Lowell loves most in nature are the trees and their 
winged inhabitants, and the flowers that grow unattended. 
The singing of birds, as we learn in both his prose and verse, 
enraptured him." — Stedman. 

Compare the following lines from the Indian-Summer Rev- 
erie : 

"Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink, 

Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops 
Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, 
And 'twixt the windrows most demurely drops." 

59. Flooding back. Compare the thrilling back of line 44. 



NOTES 97 

What is the basis of this metaphor? How many lines does it 
cover? 

62. One of the most noticeable characteristics of Lowell's 
poetry is its deep religious feeling. Compare The Courtin'. 

"God made sech nights, all white an' still 
Fur'z you can look or listen." 
and 

"So nigh to the . . . heart of God, 
You almost seem to feel it beat 
Down from the sunshine and up from the sod." 

67. Does line 65 contain the key to this line? 
70. Lowell's fondness for the dandelion may be seen in his 
poem To the Dandelion. 

77. Is there anything in this line that tends to destroy its 
euphony ? . 
87. Unscarred . . . tvake. Is the figure mixed? 
91. Sulphurous rifts. This figure anticipates what lines? 
94-95. Has the poet been letting his "fingers wander as 
they list" thus far? 

96. et seq. Compare with this passage the preparations made 
by Sir Galahad and Percevale's sister in Tennyson's Holy 
Grail: 

"And so she prayed and fasted till the sun 
Shone . . . 

But she, the wan sweet maiden, shore away 
Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair 
Which made a silken mat-work for her feet ; 
And out of this she plaited broad and long 
A strong sword belt, and wove with silver thread 
And crimson in the belt a strange device, 
A crimson grail within a silver beam; 
And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him." 

99. Holy Grail. See Introduction. 

102. Compare Sir Launfal's vow with the vow of Gawain 
and the other knights of the Round Table. See Introduction. 



98 LOWELL'S POEMS 

103. On the rushes. It was a custom of feudal times to 
have the floors strewn with rushes. 

no. What time of the year does this line indicate it to be? 

109-118. Does the contrast contained in these lines suggest 
the class distinctions of the feudal period? 

119. Summer besieged. Does this metaphor continue the 
thought of the simile in line 115? 

122. What are the pavilions tall of this line and the tents 
of line 125? 

128. How does the change in the rhythm affect the vivid- 
ness of this stanza? 

137. Does this line seem incongruous with what precedes? 

144. How appropriate is gloomed here and brimmed in the 
following line? 

146. Pitcher-plant's cup. Is this figure dignified enough to 
correspond with the rest of the stanza? 

147. Made morn. Explain. 

148. Do you find a commonplace, prosaic expression in this 
line which detracts from the beauty of the stanza ? 

154. What do you think of the force and beauty of this 
simile ? 

159. Who are included in the term leper? 

163. True. Explain. 

166. lie. Give grammatical construction. 

168. What is this thread of the all-sustaining Beauty? How 
does it run through and unite all? Give the meaning of the 
passage in full. 

172. A god. That is, a power to bless. What part of speech 
is store? 

• 175. Five thousand. Is there any special reason for five 
rather than for any other number? What is the figure of 
speech ? 

176. Is open necessary to define what is meant by wold? 
Consult dictionary. 

180. In his essay, A Good Word for Winter, Lowell shows 
his love for the "season of cold." "For my part," he says, 
"I think winter a pretty wide-awake old boy, and his bluff 



NOTES 99 

sincerity and hearty ways are more congenial to my mood, 
and more wholesome for me, than any charms of which his 
rivals are capable." Compare likewise the beautiful descrip- 
tion of winter in An Indian-Summer Reverie. 

181. Lowell himself tells us the source of this picture of 
the brook. "Last night I walked to Watertown over the 
snow," he writes in a letter, "with the new moon before me, 
and a sky exactly like that in Page's evening landscape. Orion 
was rising behind me; and, as I stood on the hill just before 
you enter the village, the stillness of the fields around me 
was delicious, broken only by the tinkle of a little brook which 
runs too swiftly for Frost to catch it. My picture of the brook 
in Sir Launfal was drawn from it." 

184. Explain groined. Compare Emerson's use of the word 
in The Problem: 

"And groined the aisles of Christian Rome." 

195. Explain relief and arabesques in the following line. 
201. How were the beams crystalled? 

210. How does the thought of this line agree with that of 
line 181? 

212. Cheeks of Christmas. What is the figure? Express 
the thought literally. 

213. Corbel. This is a shoulder-piece jutting out in the 
wall, or a bracket supporting the spring of an arch. It is much 
used in Gothic architecture. 

216. What do you think of the use of wallows here? The 
burning of the Yule-log in the fireplace on Christmas Eve is 
an old custom come down to us from heathen times. The 
word comes from jul, the Swedish and Danish word for 
Christmas. 

220. Galleries blind. Explain the figure. 

223. What is meant by the soot-forest's tangled dark? 

224. Is the picture of dreariness in lines 174-180 intensified 
by this stanza? If so, how? 

233. The seneschal was an officer in the households of medi- 
aeval nobles and dignitaries, whose duty it was to superintend 

LOFC 



100 LOWELL'S POEMS 

all domestic ceremonies. What do you think of the figure, 
flared like a torch, as a predicate of voice? 

238-239. Explain the metaphor in these lines. 

240. For vividness compare this stanza with stanza III of 
Part First. What produces this vividness? 

243. Contrast with the metaphor in this line the one in 
line 181. State the effect of each. 

244. What does the single crow add to the scene? Com- 
pare line 109. 

249. What is the difference in effect of the two pictures of 
morning, as given in this stanza and stanza IV of Part First? 

250. Explain the figure in hard gate. 

259. Comment on the force of barbed as used here. 
270. Name two things that add much to the beauty of this 
line. 

279. What is it that produces the strength of this line? 

287. How long had it taken Sir Launfal to arrive at this 
conception of Christ and of mankind? Cf. Matt, xxv, 40: 
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my 
brethren, ye have done it unto me." 

294. Ashes and dust. Explain. Compare with the ex- 
pression, "Repent in sackcloth and ashes." 

307. Beautiful Gate. A reference, doubtless, to Acts ii, 2, 
where mention is made of the Gate Beautiful of the Temple. 

309. Compare 1 Cor. ii, 16: "Ye are the temples of God." 

318. Behold it is here. What is the practical application 
of the fact that Sir Launfal found the Holy Grail at his own 
door? 

327. Himself. How is the giver fed by his own gift? 
Compare Acts xx, 35: "It is more blessed to give than to 
receive." The beauty of these lines, as indeed that of many 
others, must be absorbed and felt ; it cannot be imparted. The 
lesson taught here is one that the poet often urges. The same 
idea of human love and sympathy is paramount in A Parable. 

322. What is the stronger mail referred to here ? 

336. The hangbird. The oriole. In My Garden Acquaint- 



NOTES IOI 

ance Lowell also makes mention of the oriole's nest in the 
elm tree. 

QUESTIONS. 
Prelude to Part First. 

1. What is the purpose of the first stanza? 

2. What is the name of the analogy that the poet suggests 
by his figure? 

3. Just what about the poem does the stanza tell? 

4. What is the theme of the poet? 

5. Explain the thoughts that the poet puts into "faint 
auroral flushes." 

Lines 9-20. 

6. To whose ascent of Mount Sinai is reference made? 

7. Explain the purpose for which he went up into the 
mountain. 

8. Explain how we ascend Sinai without knowing it. 

9. What particulars are given in substantiation of the 
general statement? 

10. What, then, is the central idea of these twelve lines? 

11. What appeals are made to us? 

12. Through what channels are they made? 

13. Explain in what way our lives may be said to be 
"fallen and traitor." 

14. Explain what there is of benediction in the wood; of 
inspiration in the sea. 

Lines 21-32. 

15. Explain the nature of the contrast in this section of 
the poem. 

16. Express the central idea of this stanza in terms of this 
contrast. 

17. What relation do lines 22-28 bear to the general state- 
ment with which the stanza opens. 

18. What other general statement is made in the stanza? 
Illustrated by what particulars? 



102 LOWELL'S POEMS 

19. In what way does this stanza prepare for the passage 
that follows? 

Lines 33-56. 

20. What part of this stanza is given to the description of 
the beauty of a day in June? 

21. What part is devoted to showing the fullness of life in 
nature ? 

22. Which lines show the influence of spring on living 
things? 

23. Which of. the above ideas contains most nearly the 
central thought of the stanza? Explain how. 

Lines 57-79. 

24. In what is the thought of this stanza closely connected 
with that of the preceding? 

25. In what way does it progress nearer to the poet's 
theme? 

26. What general statement is made and then substan- 
tiated by particulars? 

27. Is the poet's purpose here to show the influence of the 
return of life upon earth's creatures in general, more particu- 
larly upon man? 

Lines 80-95. 

28. In what way does the thought of this stanza differ 
from that of the preceding? 

29. In what way is this stanza a summary of the preceding 
parts of the prelude? 

30. In what way is it the culmination of a line of thought? 

31. Show how the author is nearer his theme than he has 
been before. 

PART FIRST. 
I. 

32. What elements of Sir Launfal's character are sug- 
gested by this first stanza? 

33- By what means is his character unfolded to us? 



NOTES 103 

34. What is Sir Launfal's evident purpose in setting out 

on the quest? . 

35. What is the spirit that prompts the knight to sleep on 

the rushes? 

II. 

36. What is the time of year suggested by the first two 

lines? . .. 

37 What purpose has the author in portraying to us the 
castle instead of the knight? What is the effect? 

39. Show how the castle illustrates Sir Launfal s attitude 
toward humanity. 

39. Mention the human qualities suggested by the castle. 

III. 

40. In what way does the first line of this stanza suggest 
Sir Launfal's lack of consecration to his mission? 

41. Why does the poet lay so much stress on the gilded 

mail? , .... , A 

42. What condition of mind is suggested by lightsome as 

a locust leaf"? 

43. What does the last line of the stanza suggest about the 

young knight? 

IV. 

44. Can you see that this stanza adds anything to the con- 
trast in Stanza II? 

45 For what purpose is the contrast introduced here, be- 
tween Sir Launfal just before and just after he sees the leper? 

V. 

46 In what way did Sir Launfal make morn? 

47. What purpose has Lowell in emphasizing the loath- 
someness of the leper? . 

48. Compare these lines with lines 136-139 and explain just 
why Sir Launfal felt as he did. 

49. Just why did Sir Launfal scorn the leper? 



104 



LOWELL'S POEMS 



VI. 



50. Which is more forcible — the statement of the leper's 
rejection of the gift, or the explanation of his reason for re- 
jecting it? Explain why. 

51. How does this incident affect our opinion of Sir Laun- 
fal's quest? 

52. Explain why Lowell proceeds no further with Sir Laun- 
fal's quest. 

PRELUDE TO PART SECOND. 

Lines 174-210. 

53. What is the effect of this abrupt introduction of the 
bleakness of winter? 

54. What does it suggest with respect to Sir Launfal's 
need? His quest? 

55. Explain the reason for the author's choice of this win- 
ter scene for this prelude. 

56. Explain the significance of the brightness and life of 
the brook under its covering of ice. 

Lines 174-180. 

57. With what is this cheerfulness of the brook contrasted? 

58. In what way does the brook, in the midst of its dismal 
winter, form a direct contrast with Sir Launfal in Part First ? 

59. In what way may the brook be compared to Sir Laun- 
fal on his return ? 

60. Explain the general nature of the figure running 
through this passage. 

Lines 211-224. 

61. Explain why this picture of the interior of the castle 
is given here. 

62. With what other passages of the poem does it form a 
contrast? 



NOTES 105 

63. In what way is the cheerfulness of this picture differ- 
ent from that of the brook? 

64. Do you find anything selfish in this one? 

65. For what does this picture prepare? In what way? 

Lines 225-239. 

66. With what is the first line contrasted? 

67. In what way has the author prepared us for this in- 
troduction of Sir Launfal as an old man ? 

68. Explain the appropriateness of the introduction of 
Christmas here. 

69. In what respect may the deed of the seneschal be com- 
pared to Sir Launfal's treatment of the leper in Part First? 

70. Explain the general meaning of this prelude, and its 
relation to the rest of the poem. 



PART SECOND. 
I. 

71. What characteristic of winter does Lowell emphasize 
in this stanza? 

72. With what in Part First is this in contrast? 

73. Point out the various elements of contrast. 

II. 

74. What lesson has Sir Launfal learned when he turns 
from his own hard gate? 

75. What inner change is suggested by his no longer wear- 
ing the cross on his surcoat? 

III. 

77. Under what circumstances, pleasurable or otherwise, 
has Sir Launfal seen the things mentioned here? 

78. Explain whether or not his reverie is pleasurable. 



io6 LOWELL'S POEMS 



IV. 



79. Compare the suddenness of the leper's appearance here 
with that in Part First. 

80. What is the first thing about the leper to be noticed 
by Sir Launfal both times they meet? 

V. 

81. What feeling is aroused at the first meeting? At the 
second? 

82. Just what has wrought the difference in Sir Launfal — 
failure or suffering? 

VI. 

83. What is it that reminds Sir Launfal of his former 
meeting with the leper? 

84. What is the spirit in which Sir Launfal gives to the 
leper now ? 

VII. 

85. About what was Sir Launfal musing? 

86. What is the evident significance of this transformation 
of the leper? 

VIII. 

87. What ideas in the first prelude has Sir Launfal's life 
in his vision exemplified? 

88. What, in Sir Launfal's second gift, is most strongly 
exemplified? 

89. In what way is Sir Launfal rewarded for his gift? 

IX. 

90. How much time has elapsed since the dream began? 

91. Can you see any reason for Lowell's having Sir Laun- 
fal learn the lesson through the vision, instead of by actual 
experience? 

92. Is the actual Sir Launfal seen in this stanza and the 
first stanza of Part First as haughty and selfish as the Sir 
Launfal of the first part of the vision? 



NOTES 107 

X. 

93. If the poem ended with the first line of this stanza, 
how much would be told about the change in Sir Launfal's 
life? 

94. Why does this suggest so much? 

95. Explain, as fully as you can, how the castle illustrates 
Sir Launfal's attitude toward humanity. 

96. For what does summer stand in this stanza? 

97. Aside from Sir Launfal's kindness, what adds pleasure 
to this closing stanza? 

98. In what way has Sir Launfal climbed Sinai without 
knowing it? 

99. Compare the way Sir Launfal profited by the lesson he 
learned in his vision with the use the Ancient Mariner made 
of his awful experiences at sea. 

100. Explain fully the life lesson the author meant to teach 
by the poem. 

RHCECUS. 

56. Dryad. The active imagination of the ancients peopled 
with superior beings every mountain, vale, plain, stream, and 
tree. These beings were called nymphs. The nymphs were 
beings of natures somewhere between the natures of men and 
those of gods. They were gifted with power to make them- 
selves visible or invisible at will ; were "able to do many things 
only permitted to be done by gods ; living, like the gods, on 
ambrosia ; leading a cheerful, happy life of long duration, and 
retaining strength and youthfulness to the last, but not des- 
tined to immortality." 

Dryad was the name given to nymphs who inhabited forests, 
trees, and shrubs. 

QUESTIONS. 

1. What is the central thought of this poem? 

2. State, in a single sentence, the thought of the first stanza 
of the poem. 

3. What idea is developed in the -first thirty-five lines? 



108 LOWELL'S POEMS 

4. What was the feeling that prompted Rhcecus to prop up 
the old oak? 

5. What is the real thought behind the Greek's belief that 
trees were inhabited by Dryads ? 

6. What is the weakness in the character of Rhcecus that 
causes his disappointment? 

7. What feeling led Rhcecus to forget his appointment? 

8. Why did he treat the bee so roughly, although he felt 
sympathy for the old oak? 

9. Just why is Rhcecus unable to see the Dryad? 
10. W r hat is the effect of his error upon his life? 

A CHIPPEWA LEGEND. 

"For the leading incidents in this tale I am indebted to the 
very valuable Algic Researches of Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq." 
— Lowell. 

12. Justify this assertion. 

13-17. Is this idea common among Indians, or is it the 
Christian conception of the poet put into the mouth of the old 
chief? 

19. Note the simplicity of this legend as compared with 
that of Prometheus. To what cause do you attribute it ? 

22. Moons. What is the special propriety in the use of this 
figure here? 

24-30. What is the keynote of the character of the elder 
brother as exhibited in these lines? Was it this that led him 
to forget utterly the little Sheemah (line 36) ? 

40. Is the sister true to her brother from love or duty? 

55. Is the sister led away at last by pride or selfishness, or 
both? 

76. From hope to fear. What was his hope? His fear? 

91. Reference is made to Ruth, who was befriended by 
Boaz. See Ruth ii. 

102. Was something. What was it? 

no. Even. A common use of the word in the Bible. 

113. Why can he not meet Sheemah's first look? 



NOTES 109 

114. What is the spirit in which the elder brother speaks 
to Sheemah ? 

123. Till the heart be changed. Was not the heart of the 
elder brother already changed? What then is meant? 

130. Was this really Sheemah or an illusion caused by the 
elder brother's guilty conscience? 

What is the meaning of this poem? 

AMBROSE. 

2. Ambrose. One of the early church fathers, noted for 
his zeal and piety. 

6. The early church fathers believed that sin was to be 
avoided by giving as little attention as possible to the body ; 
in other words, by ''crucifying the flesh." 

36. Porch. Express your opinion of this metaphor. 

42. Pillar of fire and cloud. A reference to the pillar of 
cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, which went be- 
fore the Israelites in their journey out of Egypt. See Exodus 
xii, 21, 22. 

46. Dividual essence. Explain. 

58. Put on the figure. Explain. 
* 
GENERAL QUESTIONS. 

1. What are the qualities of Ambrose's character as shown 
in the poem? 

2. Why was the creed of Ambrose a failure? 

3. What relation in thought do stanzas IX and X bear to 
stanza VII ? 

4. What, then, in your opinion, is the purpose of the poem? 

5. What information da you get regarding the religious 
belief of Lowell? 

A PARABLE. 

2. Holy hill. The holy hill of Scripture was Mount Zion. Is 
the prophet represented as having made a pilgrimage to this 
place ? 



HO LOWELL'S POEMS 

12. What kind of a sign did the prophet desire? 

20. What hint does this stanza give concerning Lowell's 
idea of God as revealed in nature? 

26. In Eld. Of old, in olden times. 

28. Explain the meaning in this line. Does the following 
stanza throw light on it? 

36. How was he less tlian tlicyf 

44. Compare with this a thought in Sir Lannfal: 
"The Grail in my castle here is found." 

AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE. 

"What Lowell loves most are the trees and their winged in- 
habitants, and the flowers that grow unattended. The Indian- 
Summer Reverie is an early and delightful avowal of his pas- 
toral tastes. His favorite birds and trees, the meadows, riv- 
er, and marshes, all are there, put in with strokes no modern 
descriptive poet has excelled." — Stedman. 

Line 1. Visionary. Note the force of this word as suggest- 
ing that which is dim, distant, faintly seen, and at the same 
time that which is fighting or changeable. 

5. Hebe was the cup-bearer of the gods. Note how the 
figure is carried out in fills the bowl. 

7. Tremulous hair. Explain what is meant. 

11. Projected. Spread out, extended, expanded. Note what 
the word means by derivation. 

22. Chickadee. The black-cap titmouse of North America. 

25. Gleaning Ruth. For Ruth gleaning in the fields of 
Boaz, refer to Ruth ii. 

28. Seem remote. Do distances seem greater in the autumn 
than during other seasons of the year in certain localities? 
Give reason for your answer. 

29. The cock's shrill trump. Compare "the cock's shrill 
clarion" of Gray's Elegy. 

33. Flails. Much of the threshing on the smaller farms of 
New England was done with a flail at a comparatively recent 
date; and the instrument may still occasionally be seen. 



NOTES III 

38. Shag-bark's. The shag-bark is a species of hickory. 
46. Single crow. The crow seems to be a favorite bird of 
Lowell. Cf. Sir Launfal, 109, and 244 : 

"A single crow on the tree-top bleak." 

See also line 166 of this poem. 

50. Most shy and ladylike of trees. Explain why these epi- 
thets are applicable to the birch. 

59. Lapi. Enveloped, wrapt. 

61. Note the contrast between hushed wood and city's Hare. 

67. How does the red-oak appear to rebuff the kiss of the 
relenting sky? 

83. Express your opinion of ensanguined, as applied to the 
color of autumnal leaves. Also of coral, in the following line. 

85. Crumbling boundary. What -is it? 

92. The Charles separates Cambridge from Boston. Ex- 
plain a stripe of nether sky. 

94. Bellying by. For the use of this word, cf. Sir Launfal, 
218: 

"And belly and tug as a flag in the wind." 

99. Marshes. Here used in the sense of Hats. 

106. They. What is the antecedent? 

107. Glimmering. Show the application of this figure. 

119. Note the numerous figures in this stanza. Give the 
application of each. Of dimpling light modifies what? 

120. Blithesome is a very common word with Lowell. Do 
any synonyms express as much ? 

143. Explain the meaning of shorn sun and swells. 
147. Of . . . hill. What does this phrase modify? 
161. With the thought here compare the following from 
Locksley Hall: 

"Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags 
were furled 
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world. 
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm 

in awe, 
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law." 



112 LOWELL'S POEM£ 

163. Tinkle. For a like use of this word, see Sir Launfal, 
189: 

"Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt." 

165. See note on 46. 

172. Too fleet and vanishing. What is the length of winter 
as compared with the other seasons? 

178. Dumb and blind. Compare Sir Launfal, 242: 

"The river was dumb and could not speak." 

183. Eastern blow. The storms of the vernal equinox. 

190. Druid-like. Note the frequency with which this figure 
appears in Lowell. 

192. Stonehenge is the name given to the Druidical monu- 
ments in Salisbury Plain, England. It is a set of circles and 
oval figures. The first circle has pillars of stone about 13 feet 
high and 4 feet apart, with stones placed across the top. There 
are about 140 stones in all, some being 23 feet high. Stone- 
henge has been classed as one of the four wonders of Eng- 
land. 

201. Nigh. This word, used doubtless for the sake of 
rhyme, mars the beauty of the line much. 

209. Muses' factories. The buildings of Harvard College. 

220. Cits. A contraction of citizen. Do you think the word 
poetic ? 

221. Coptic tombs. The Copts were an ancient Egyptian 
race. Explain the force of the figure in this and the preced- 
ing lines. 

222. Allston. Washington Allston was a native of Amer- 
ica, but a member of the Royal Academy, England. After 
many years in Europe he returned to this country, where he 
devoted himself to literature and painting. He died in 1843. 

227. Undine-like. Undine is the name of water-spirits in 
the mythology of the Paracelsists. The Undine could marry 
among mortals and received a soul upon the birth of a child. 
The idea has been beautifully developed in Fouque's Undine. 

230. Painter. See line 222 and note. 



NOTES 113 

237. Compare with this stanza Longfellow's Village Black- 
smith. 

254. Causey is a shortened form of causeway. 

255. Paul Potter. A painter of high renown, born at Enk- 
huysen in 1625. He was instructed in art by his father, Peter 
Potter. Before the attainment of his fifteenth year his work 
was held in high estimation. He was primarily a painter of 
animals, his landscapes rarely extending beyond a pasture, a 
clump of trees, and a farm-house or a hovel ; but these are 
represented with uncommon fidelity. 

264. Collegisse juvat. He is glad to have attended college. 
280. With the feeling in this stanza compare the following 
lines from Wordsworth : 9 

"Dear native regions, I foretell, 
From what I feel at this farewell, 
That wheresoe'er my footsteps tend, 
And whensoe'er my course shall end, 
If in that hour a single tie 
Survive of local sympathy, 
My soul will cast the backward view, 
The longing look, alone on you." 

GENERAL QUESTIONS. 

1. Is there any one thought running through the poem? 
If so, what is it? 

2. What was the author's purpose in writing this poem? 

3. What things in nature does the poem show that he liked 
most? 

4. What is the effect of nature on the poet's spirit? 

5. Compare this poem with Sir Launfal, with regard to 
lyrical beauty. 

TO A DANDELION. 

"Of Lowell's earlier pieces, the one which shows the finest 
sense of the poetry of Nature is that addressed 'To the Dan- 
delion,' The opening phrase ranks with the selectest of Words- 



114 LOWELL'S POEMS 

worth and Keats, to whom imaginative diction came intui- 
tively . . . and both thought and language are felicitous 
throughout. . . . This poem contains many of the author's 
peculiar beauties and none of his faults ; it was the outcome of 
the mood that can summon a rare spirit of art to express the 
gladdest thought and most elusive feeling." — Stedman. 

5. Buccaneers. Explain the force and application of the 
figure. 

6. Eldorado. From the Spanish word el. the, and dorado, 
gilt or gilded. The word generally means to us a land of 
gold. Explain the figure. 

14-15. Compare lines 31-32 of Sir Launfal: 

"No price is set on the lavish summer; 
June may be had by the poorest comer." 

23. Golden cuirasscd. What was the cuirass? Explain the 
force of the figure. 

26. Sybaris was a town in Lucania, between the Sybaris 
and the Crathis rivers. The town was so noted for its luxury 
and love of pleasure that its name became a synonym of vol- 
uptuousness. 

55. The winds take care. How? 

57. Fare. The original meaning of this word was to travel, 
journey; the noun meaning a journey. Compare our farewell. 
It afterward came to mean the cost of traveling; hence its 
present meaning. The poets have used the word much in the 
original sense. Cf. Milton : 

"So on he fares, and to the border comes 
Of Eden." — Paradise Lost. 

GENERAL QUESTIONS. 

1. Which is the more natural and free in movement, To a 
Dandelion or Applcdore? 

2. From a comparison of these two poems, does it seem to 
you that Lowell was more at home with inland nature than 
with the sea? 



NOTES 



115 



3. The term Hazvless has been applied to this poem ; does 
it seem to you to be justifiable? 

4. What are the distinctive characteristics of the poem? 

5. What elements has it in common with Sir Launfalf 

THE BOBOLINK. 

1. Anacreon was a Greek poet of the latter part of the 
sixth century B. C. He was born at Teos, in Ionia, but spent 
the greater part of his life at the court of Polycrates, on the 
island of Samos, where he celebrated the praise of wine and 
dancing. He died in his eighty-sixth year, about 478 B. C. 

6. Compare Sir Launfal: 

"The heart is so full that a drop overfills it." 
13-15. With these lines compare the picture in Sir Launfal, 

"The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 
Atilt like a blossom among the leave^, 
And lets his illumined being o'errun." 

Which is more beautiful? Why? 

16-17. This is worthy to be compared with the beautiful 
lines of Shelley's To a Skylark: 

"Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 
Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art." 

28. In the lines which follow, note how the metre varies to 
agree with the lightsomeness of the thought. 

57. This same thought is expressed by Wordsworth in sev- 
eral of his poems. Compare the following from The Tables 
Turned: 

"Books ! 'tis a dull and endless strife : 
Come, hear the woodland linnet, 
How sweet his music ! On my life, 
There's more of wisdom in it," 



Il6 LOWELL'S POEMS 

73- Unhoodwinked. Has this word any place In aesthetic 
poetry? 

106. The thought throughout this poem is quite Words- 
worthian, and it is one of the poems cited as a proof of the in- 
fluence of the great nature poet upon the early productions of 
Lowell. 

GENERAL QUESTIONS. 

1. Are the lyrical qualities of this poem superior or in- 
ferior to those of To a Dandelion? Give reasons for your 
answer. 

2. Does animate or inanimate nature appeal to Lowell more 
forcibly? 

3. Is this poem simply an expression of poetic feeling? 
Give reason for answer. 

4. What are the principal elements of its beauty? 

5. Does the poem compare favorably with Shelley's To a 
Skylark? 

THE PRESENT CRISIS. 

This poem was written in 1845 when the question of the 
annexing of Texas was before the country. This annexation 
was opposed by the anti-slavery party, on the ground that it 
would enlarge the slave territory and strengthen the South. 
The poem well illustrates Lowell's patriotism, his hatred of 
oppression, and the zeal with which he espoused the cause of 
abolition. 

3-5. Express, in your own words, the effect upon the slave 
of a deed done for freedom. 

6-10. The thought here seems to be that the advance of 
truth comes as a result of upheavals and overturnings of sys- 
tems and institutions, and that the effect of every such ad- 
vance is universal — felt through every "hut and palace." 

13-15. What was the effect of Evil's triumph upon the 
slave ? 



NOTES 117 

16-20. Which line expresses the central thought of this 
stanza ? Illustrates the truth of it. Compare the poet's ex- 
pression of the same thought in the homely language of The 
Biglozv Papers: 

"Laborin' man an' laborin' woman 
Hev one glory an' one shame. 
Ev'y thin' that's done inhuman 
Injers all on 'em the same." 

Also the following from the Capture of the Fugitive Slave 
near Washington: 

"He's true to God who's true to man; wherever wrong is 
done 
To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding 

sun, 
That wrong is also done to us ; and they are slaves most 

base 
Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their 

race." 
23-25. Why is some great cause called God's new Messiah ? 
See Matt, xxv, 32-33- 

"And before him shall be gathered all nations ; and he shall 
separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his 
sheep from the goats : 

"And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats 
on the left." 

27. Reference is here made to the instructions of Christ 
to the Disciples. On departing from any city which refused 
to receive them they were to shake the dust from their san- 
dals as a testimony against it. 

28. Compare Bryant's lines: 

"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; 
The eternal years of God are hers; 
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, 
And dies among her worshipers." 



Ii8 LOWELL'S POEMS 

29-30. What does the poet mean by saying Truth was a 
wandering outcast? Explain the prophecy in these lines. 

31. Beacon-moments. What other two expressions in the 
stanza are synonymous ? 

35. Shows. Give synonyms of the word as used here. 

2,7. The reference is to John i, 1 : 

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God." 

39-40. Explain these lines. 

42. What is the grammatical construction of this line? 

43-44. The famous oracle of Apollo was at Delphi, an old 
Greek town in Phocis. In the centre of the temple was a 
small opening in the ground, out of which arose an intoxicat- 
ing vapor. The priestess, called the Pythia, having breathed 
this, sat down upon a tripod placed over the hole in the 
ground and then delivered the oracle. It was either given 
in verse or handed over to a poet employed for turning it 
into poetic form. The Delphic oracle was famous not only in 
Greece, but among neighboring nations as well. 

46-50. The reference in this stanza is to Polyphemus, the 
great Cyclops, who was king of this fabulous race of giants. 
They had a single eye in the middle of the forehead. Whfen 
Ulysses landed on the island of Sicily he entered the cave of 
Polyphemus with twelve companions, six of whom were de- 
voured by the giant. Ulysses succeeded in making Polyphe- 
mus drunk, and, after boring out the giant's one eye with a 
burning stake, made his escape, leaving the blinded monster 
to grope about in the darkness. 

51-52. Lowell has expressed the same thought elsewhere: 

"They are slaves who dare not be 
In the right with two or three." 

56. Name some of the heroes the poet probably had in 
mind. 

57. Golden-beam. Explain. 

58. Mastered, To what does this participle belong? 



NOTES 



119 



64. Credo. In Latin the Apostles' Creed begins with this 
word, meaning / believe. 

68. Far in front. Explain. 

74. Does the poet mean to charge any persons or party 
with being behind their time? If so, whom? 

78. What is meant by the truth of the Puritans? 

83. Compare the first half of this line with line 78. What 
is the unexpressed object of to slay? 

86. Illustrate the thought of this line. 

90. Compare the meaning of this line with that of line 86. 

GENERAL QUESTIONS. 

1. What was the purpose of this poem? 

2. What is the prominent characteristic of the style? 

3. What passages seem to you most vigorous? 

4. Compare the stanza used in this poem, as regards force 
and beauty, with that of Sir Launfal. 

5. How great would you judge the influence of this poem 
to have been, as compared with that of The Biglow Papers? 



NOV 18 190? 



